TALES  FROM  A  FAMISHED  LAND 


MOT.  Or  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


TALES  FROM  A 
FAMISHED  LAND 


INCLUDING 


The  White  Island— A 
Story  of  the  Dardanelles 


BY 
EDWARD  EYRE  HUNT 

Author  of  "War  Bread"  Eft." 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  fcf  COMPANY 
1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


COPYRIGHT,  I9l6,  1917,  BY  THE   REPUBLIC   PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  INC. 

COPYRIGHT!1,  1917,  BY  THE   ATLANTIC   MONTHLY   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY  THE   AMERICAN   RED   CROSS    SOCIETY 

COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY  THE   OUTLOOK   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BT  P.  F.  COLLIER'S  SONS 


To  THE 

MEMORY  OF  E.  O. 


2130432 


Collier's  Weekly,  The  Outlook,  The  New 
Republic,  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  The 
Red  Cross  Magazine  have  published  certain 
of  these  tales  in  serial  form,  and  to  them 
my  thanks  are  due  for  permission  to  re- 
publish  in  book  form. 


Vil 


FOREWORD 

HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER,  chair- 
man of  the  Commission  for  Relief  in 
Belgium,  once  called  that  amazing 
organization,  "the  door  in  the  wall  of  steel." 
Between  November,  1914,  and  March,  1917, 
when  America  entered  the  world  war,  there 
had  passed  through  that  door  millions  of 
dollars  in  money,  thousands  of  tons  of  food- 
stuffs and  clothing,  and  four  or  five  dozen 
young  Americans,  most  of  them  just  out  of 
their  'teens,  who  played  a  part  in  Belgian 
history  which  they  are  still  trying  to  explain 
in  words  of  one  syllable  to  admiring  rela- 
tives and  friends! 

Theirs  is  a  story  of  sweet  romance,  gallant 
adventure,  grotesque  comedy,  and  grim  trag- 
edy. The  tales  which  are  here  set  down  are 
a  part  of  their  story.  These  tales  are  not 
strictly  truth,  but  they  are  not  fiction.  They 
ix 


Foreword 

are  both.  They  try  to  describe  the  state  of 
mind,  the  atmosphere  in  which  History — 
both  truth  and  fiction — is  made;  the  atmos- 
phere behind  long  lines  of  barbed-wire  and 
bayonets,  behind  waves  of  poisoned  gas,  in 
a  famished  land  where  ten  million  heroic 
people,  both  French  and  Belgians,  have 
silently  and  steadily  fought  to  keep  their 
self-respect,  their  sanity,  and  their  courage. 

These  tales  have  been  written  in  a  spirit 
of  gratitude  and  love;  with  gratitude  and 
love  first  of  all  to  Herbert  Clark  Hoover, 
then  to  the  other  officers  and  members  of 
the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  and 
then,  and  perhaps  most  of  all,  to  those  un- 
named French,  Walloon,  and  Flemish  millions 
with  whom  we  Americans  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  on  the  inside  of  the  "door  in  the 
wall  of  steel.'* 

E.  E.  H. 
4  Place  de  la  Concorde,  Paris 

New  Year's  Day,  igi8. 


CONTENTS 

MM 

FOREWORD ix 

I.    SAINT  DYMPNA'S  MIRACLE       .  3 

II.    LOVE  IN  A  BARGE     ....  19 

III.  THE  ODYSSEY  OF  MR.  SOLSLOG  29 

IV.  FIGURES  OF  THE  DANCE      .     .  46 
V.    THE  SAVIOUR  OF  MONT  CESAR  61 

VI.    GHOSTS 86 

VII.    THE  DESERTER 96 

VIII.    THE  GLORY  OF  TINARLOO  .      .  114 

IX.    A  FLEMISH  FANCY    ....  122 

X.    THE  SWALLOWS  OF  DIEST  .     .  135 

XL     PENSIONERS 148 

XII.     DONA  QUIXOTE 160 

XIII.  IN  THE  STREET  OF  THE  SPY     .  167 

XIV.  THE  WHITE  ISLAND — A  STORY 

OF  THE  DARDANELLES     .     .  176 
xi 


TALES  FROM  A  FAMISHED  LAND 


Tales  From  a  Famished  J^and 


SAINT  DYMPNA  S  MIRACLE 

PIERRE,   the    chauffeur,    launched  a 
savage  kick  at  the  newly  punctured 
tire    and    swore    into    the     night. 
"Three  quarters  of  an  hour,  monsieur,  to 
repair  it,"  he  said  reluctantly,  switching  off 

the  motor.     "  Do  you  wish ' 

Into  the  sudden  silence  stole  the  slow, 
incessant  roar  of  the  Yser  cannon.  The 
level  stretches  of  the  Campine,  alternating 
black  vistas  of  scrub  evergreens  with  little 
fields,  peat  bogs,  and  kitchen  gardens,  lay 
fragrant  and  silent  in  the  moonlight.  Hea- 
ther was  in  bloom,  nightingales  were  nest- 
ing and  so  were  no  longer  singing,  and  the 
narrow  Flemish  road  before  and  behind  the 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

automobile  lay  like  a  placid  silver  river,  in- 
viting one  to  quiet  thoughts. 

"Yes,  "I  answered  Pierre's  unfinished  query. 
"I'll  go  for  a  stroll  toward  the  next  farm- 
house. Take  your  time,  Pierre.  There's  no 
hurry  to-night." 

We  had  just  left  the  town  of  Gheel,  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  places  in  Belgium,  a 
town  where  more  than  a  thousand  insane 
folk  live  quiet  and  useful  lives,  parcelled  out 
among  the  peasants,  but  under  the  super- 
vision of  district  doctors.  The  insane  are 
treated  as  if  they  were  normal  beings,  are 
given  work  according  to  their  strength,  men- 
tal and  physical,  and  find  companionship 
among  a  peasantry  noted  for  industry  and 
stubborn  independence.  This  is  originally 
due  to  certain  miracles  of  Saint  Dympna, 
one  of  the  guardian  saints  of  the  insane — an 
Irish  princess,  converted  to  Christianity, 
and  martyred  at  Gheel  by  her  pagan  father 
on  the  3Oth  of  May  in  the  year  of  Our  Lord 
600. 

Under  the  bright  moon  the  land  seemed 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

singularly  like  Ireland,  and  a  little  old  man 
stepping  toward  me  down  the  silvery  road, 
his  pipe  in  his  mouth,  his  eyes  screwed  up, 
his  bent  legs  wrapped  in  ill-fitting  trousers, 
his  feet  in  wooden  shoes,  might  have  been 
the  fabled  leprechaun,  or  Wee  Hughie  Gal- 
lagher of  Donegal.  He  wore  a  brassard  on 
his  right  sleeve,  for  he  was  one  of  the  village 
watch,  guarding  the  telephone  and  telegraph 
wires  so  that  no  accident  might  happen  to 
them  to  give  the  Germans  an  excuse  for 
crushing  the  commune  with  an  exorbitant 
fine. 

"Goe'n  avond,  mynheer,"  I  called  cheerfully. 

"  Avond,  mynheer"  he  answered  in  a  weak 
voice. 

"I  am  the  American  delegate  of  the  Ko- 
miteit  voor  Hulp  en  Voeding"  I  explained. 

"Mynheer  is  American?"  he  asked  doubt- 
fully, taking  his  pipe  from  his  mouth  and 
scratching  his  head  as  if  to  recall  where  or 
what  America  could  be. 

"Ja  wel.  Have  you  a  cup  of  milk  at  your 
house?" 

[Si 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

He  turned  and  faced  back  down  the  road, 
still  scratching  his  head. 

"Ah  't  U  belief  t,  mynheer,"  I  added  cere- 
moniously. 

My  superlative  courtesy  seemed  to  decide 
him,  and  he  gave  a  gesture  of  assent.  Side 
by  side  and  in  silence  then  we  walked  down 
the  silver  road  to  the  first  farmhouse.  A 
black  mass  of  protecting  trees  hung  close 
over  the  chimney,  and  low  thatch  swept  down 
like  the  back  of  some  prehistoric  monster, 
gray  green  in  the  clear  moonlight.  The 
walls  were  lath  filled  in  with  clay.  Two 
little  rectangular  windows  glowed  dully, 
and  the  edges  of  the  thick,  ill-fitting  door 
shone  with  faint  light. 

"You  live  here,  mynheer?"  I  asked. 

"  Ja,  mynheer." 

"You  own  it?" 

"I  rent  it." 

"I  may  enter?" 

"You  may  enter,  mynheer." 

He  thrust  open  the  door  without  knocking. 
I  stumbled  into  the  dimly  lighted  room, 
[6] 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

hardly  knowing  what  I  expected  to  find. 
Peasants'  cottages  were  invariably  inter- 
esting to  me,  and  invariably  they  contained 
surprises.  But  this  was  older  and  more 
primitive  than  any  I  had  yet  visited — a  relic 
of  long-gone  days.  It  was  like  opening  an 
ancient  tomb  or  a  buried  city.  I  entered 
expectantly,  and  lo!  the  centuries  rolled  back- 
ward, and  I  stood  with  people  of  Froissart's 
day,  with  peasants  who  had  scarcely  altered 
since  the  Middle  Ages,  whose  feet  were  hardly 
on  the  threshold  of  modernity. 

The  room  was  square.  At  one  end  was 
a  brick  fireplace,  rude  as  if  aborigines  had 
built  it,  with  an  iron  frame  squatting  in  the 
ashes,  a  thick  pot  suspended  by  a  chain,  a 
broiling  rack,  a  heavy  iron  fork,  a  charred 
stick  for  a  poker,  and  a  rude  crane.  In  the 
smoke  of  a  tiny  turf  fire  on  the  hearth  hung 
rows  of  drying  vegetables  and  skins  of  meat. 
The  floor  was  beaten  earth,  hard  as  brick. 
The  walls  were  whitewashed.  The  ceiling 
was  low  and  strung  with  onions  and  other 
roots  and  vegetables,  and  the  only  touch  of 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

modern  things  was  a  hanging  lamp  in  the 
centre.  In  a  corner  hung  a  man's  suit  of 
Sunday  clothes,  like  a  creature  which  has 
been  hanged.  A  ladder  beside  it  went  up 
to  the  blind  loft  overhead.  A  picture  of 
the  Virgin  hung  on  one  wall,  and  a  plaster 
statuette  of  Saint  Anthony  and  Saint  Joseph 
gleamed  from  a  shelf  over  the  fireplace,  draw- 
ing one's  eye  to  a  row  of  plates  and  dishes. 
An  odour  of  smoke  and  cooking  and  manure 
heaps  and  the  foul  smells  of  unwashed  human 
beings  crowded  the  little  room,  and  the  air 
droned  with  the  sleepy  buzzing  of  innumer- 
able flies. 

A  barefooted,  prematurely  aged  woman, 
bent  with  too  much  child-bearing,  gave  me  a 
chair,  wiping  it  ceremoniously  with  her  apron. 
The  man  spat  on  the  floor  behind  us  and 
scraped  the  spittle  with  his  sabot.  Three 
children  were  asleep  in  a  recess  on  a  pile  of 
litter  curtained  from  sight  in  the  day-time. 
But  the  most  striking  person  in  the  room 
was  a  young  woman,  sitting  before  the  turf 
fire  with  a  fourth  child — evidently  the  young- 
[8] 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

est — in  her  lap.  She  wore  stockings,  leather 
shoes,  and  a  simple,  black  bombazine  dress. 
Her  face  was  turned  from  me,  but  I  saw  that 
her  hair  was  neatly  coiled  about  her  head 
and  pinned  with  a  shell  comb. 

The  older  woman  sprang  to  the  hanging 
lamp  and  turned  it  high  until  it  smoked. 
"Good  evening,  mynheer,"  she  called  in  a 
panic  of  fear  and  pleasure.  "Be  seated,  if  it 
please  your  Excellency." 

She  dragged  the  chair  beside  the  lamp 
and  the  table  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 
During  the  next  five  minutes  she  was  fever- 
ishly busy  offering  me  beer,  milk,  and  every- 
thing else  that  her  mean  little  house  afforded. 

I  stared  at  the  woman  beside  the  fireplace, 
and  my  host — who  refused  to  seat  himself 
in  my  presence — at  last  touched  his  head 
significantly.  "Ah,  monsieur,"  he  sighed. 
(He  had  been  one  of  the  franksmannen, 
migratory  labourers  who  work  for  several 
months  of  the  year  in  France,  and  he  spoke 
tolerable  French.  Indeed  he  was  much  bet- 
ter informed  and  quicker  of  wit  than  his 

[9] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

person  or  his  home  would  indicate.)  "She 
is  mad:  like  all  the  world,  she  is  mad.  All 
the  world  is  mad." 

"You  mean  the  war?'* 

"Yes,  monsieur.  Saint  Dympna  has  re- 
ceived thousands  of  mad  ones,  and  of  those 
who  are  mad  but  whom  she  has  not  received, 
there  are  millions.  When  the  war  broke 
out  two  men  went  mad  in  this  village.  They 
were  carried  away  to  Gheel,  raving.  Their 
eyes  stared,  their  lips  frothed,  and  they 
twitched  all  over.  When  the  Germans  came 
here,  certain  ones  went  mad  at  sight  of  them. 
I  have  seen  it  with  my  eyes,  monsieur. 
They  say  that  when  the  Germans  came  into 
France  they  sent  whole  long  trainloads  of 
mad  ones  back  into  their  own  land.  When 
the  big  shells  burst  in  the  forts,  all  the  gar- 
rison goes  mad.  When  the  aviator  flies  over 
the  trench,  men  go  mad.  You  have  seen 
there  are  always  two  German  sentries  to- 
gether? It  is  so  that  if  one  goes  mad  the 
other  will  be  at  hand.  For  they  go  mad, 
monsieur,  by  dozens,  by  hundreds,  by  thou- 
[10] 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

sands.  Have  you  seen  their  eyes?  They 
are  mad.  And  their  lips?  They  work  like 
the  lips  of  men  always  talking  to  themselves. 
When  the  war  began,  I,  too,  was  mad.  I 
dreamed  terrible  dreams.  For  two  months 
I  was  mad — like  all  the  world.'* 

"But  the  woman  there?"  I  asked,  point- 
ing to  the  figure  beside  the  turf  glow. 

The  man  clattered  over  to  her  and  laid 
his  hand  gently  on  her  shoulder.  "Ma- 
dame," he  said,  "there  is  a  gentleman  here  to 
speak  with  you." 

"Nay,  mynheer,"  she  answered  quietly, 
"not  until  midnight." 

"He  is  not  the  doctor,  madame." 

She  turned  and  gave  me  a  searching  glance. 
The  movement  revealed  that  her  breast  was 
uncovered,  and  that  she  held  the  sleeping 
child  against  her  heart.  "Nay,"  she  said 
again,  "not  until  midnight." 

He  came  slowly  back.  "When  a  child 
is  sick,  she  knows  it  and  she  comes,"  he  ex- 
plained apologetically.  "At  midnight  she 
goes  back  to  the  doctor's  house." 

In] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Alone?" 

"Alone,  monsieur.  God  and  the  Devil 
alike  love  the  mad.  God  and  the  Devil 
alike  watch  over  them.  This  one" — he 
pointed  to  the  woman  with  the  child — "was 
a  lady  of  Louvain,  of  the  Krakenstraat;  she 
was  rich;  she  had  a  husband  and  two  chil- 
dren. They  were  killed  by  the  Germans 
and  she  was  wounded  in  the  shoulder.  Her 
house  was  burned;  her  money  lost.  She  went 
mad.  She  was  taken  to  Duffel,  I  think; 
then  to  Antwerp,  then  to  Hoogstraeten,  then 
she  was  brought  to  Gheel,  screaming  for  her 
children  and  her  husband — mad — mad  and 
soon  to  die.  Then,  monsieur,  Saint  Dympna 
wrought  a  miracle  through  the  love  of  a 
little  child,  a  little  sick  boy  in  the  doctor's 
house  where  madame  was  confined,  and  she 
became  well  after  a  fashion.  And  now  in 
whatever  house  a  child  is  ill,  madame  by 
the  grace  of  God  knows  of  it,  and  she  comes 
and  nurses  it  back  to  health.  The  first  mad- 
ness is  of  the  Devil,  monsieur,  violent  and 
bloody;  the  second  is  of  God,  and  it  is  kind." 

[12] 


Saint  Dympnas  Miracle 

In  the  midst  of  his  prattle  the  woman  rose 
slowly,  holding  the  sleeping  child  in  the 
hollow  of  her  right  arm  and  buttoning  the 
bosom  of  her  dress  with  her  left  hand. 
"Hush!"  she  admonished  softly.  "Listen, 
mynheeren!"  From  some  instinct  of  cour- 
tesy I  rose  to  my  feet.  She  raised  her  hand 
warningly  but  did  not  turn  her  head.  "Lis- 
ten," she  repeated,  staring  toward  the  fire- 
place. 

It  was  an  uncanny  thing.  We  stood  as  if 
frozen.  The  heavy  breathing  of  the  peasant 
woman  pulsed  through  the  quiet  room;  the 
old  man  stared  with  all  his  eyes;  a  sleepy 
chicken  chuckled  from  an  adjoining  shed, 
but  there  was  no  other  sound  from  outside. 
A  minute  went  by;  another;  a  third,  and  still 
we  stood  stiffly  in  the  centre  of  the  room. 
At  last  madame  beckoned  to  the  peasant- 
mother,  who  stole  across  the  floor  toward 
her  and  paused  at  her  side.  Silently  she 
gave  the  mother  her  child,  her  finger  on  her 
lips,  her  eyes  still  fixed  on  the  spot  near  the 
fireplace. 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

Then  she  turned,  and  laying  her  hands  on 
the  head  of  the  sleeping  boy,  she  began  in  a 
strange,  low,  hissing  voice,  "This  one  shall 
be  an  avenger  of  Louvain,  he  shall  be  an 
avenger  of  Dinant,  and  Termonde,  and 
Aerschot,  and  Andenne,  and  Liege,  and 
Tamines,  and  Vise.  He  shall  avenge  our 
nation.  He  shall  not  forget.  In  the  days 
of  his  happiness  he  shall  remember  our  sor- 
row; in  the  days  of  his  prosperity  he  shall 
remember  our  misery;  in  the  days  of  his 
strength  he  shall  remember  our  weakness. 
Go!  Be  healed!"  Then  in  her  quiet,  nat- 
ural voice,  pointing  to  the  spot  on  a  level 
with  her  eyes  at  which  she  had  stared,  she 
added,  "A  sick  child  is  there,  mynheeren. 
Three,  four  kilometres  away  it  is,  and  I  must 
go  to  it." 

"God!"  the  old  man  breathed. 

"I  must  go  now.  The  child  is  very  ill. 
I  must  go  now,  or  I  shall  be  too  late." 

The  old  man  crossed  himself  again  and 
again.  "God!  God!"  he  repeated  help- 
lessly. 

[14! 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

The  young  woman  wheeled  suddenly. 
"What  is  that  noise?"  she  exclaimed,  point- 
ing to  the  roadway. 

The  roar  of  an  automobile  resounded  out- 
side, and  I  knew  Pierre  was  coming. 

"Is  it  the  Germans?" 

"No,  madame,  it  is  my  automobile,  at 
your  service." 

She  showed  no  astonishment  or  perplexity. 
Her  mind  seemed  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
problem  of  the  sick  child.  "Take  me  in 
your  automobile  to  the  child,  monsieur," 
she  replied  rapidly,  speaking  in  French. 
"Let  us  hurry,  hurry!'* 

"But  where,  madame?" 

"I  do  not  know,  monsieur,  but  I  will  show 
you.  There!  There!"  She  waved  her  hand 
in  the  direction  of  Gheel. 

We  hurried  like  fugitives  from  the  house 
and  into  the  tonneau,  leaving  the  awe-struck 
peasants  standing  with  mouths  agape.  Pierre 
stared  in  consternation  at  our  coming,  but 
said  no  word.  I  did  not  try  to  explain. 
Our  passenger  sat  tense,  her  head  turned 

[IS] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

to     one     side    as    if    she     were     listening 
closely. 

We  came  quickly  to  a  fork  of  the  road. 
"Which  way,  monsieur?"  Pierre  asked. 

"I  do  not  know.  It  is  for  madame  to 
say,"  I  answered. 

She  was  quiet  for  an  instant.  "To  the 
right  hand,"  she  exclaimed  suddenly.  "Make 
haste!  There!  In  that  house!" 

The  car  jerked  to  a  stop,  and  I  leaped 
out  to  help  madame  to  the  ground.  Now 
that  we  had  arrived,  to  my  astonishment  she 
made  no  move  to  leave  the  car.  Her  head 
sank  slowly  forward  to  her  breast,  and  she 
sat  huddled  listlessly,  paying  no  attention 
to  Pierre  or  me. 

"Is  it  this  house,  madame?"  I  asked, 
hoping  to  arouse  her. 

"This  house,"  she  said,  "but  we  are  too 
late." 

"But  no,   madame!"   I   exclaimed.     "Go 
quickly  and  help!"     At  the  moment  I  be- 
lieved in  her  supernatural  powers  as  firmly 
as  any  peasant  of  the  Campine. 
[16] 


Saint  Dympna's  Miracle 

She  lifted  her  head.  A  sad  light  had  come 
into  her  eyes.  "It  is  too  late.  The  avenger 
of  Belgium  is  not  to  come  from  this  house," 
she  muttered. 

"But  yes!     Hurry!" 

The  madness  of  my  words  did  not  occur 
to  me  until  days  afterward:  the  lunacy  of 
thinking  either  that  she  could  heal,  or  that 
the  child  of  these  poor  peasant-folk  when 
healed  would  avenge  his  nation  on  her  ene- 
mies. God  knows  what  wild  thoughts  were 
in  my  mind  that  night!  God  knows,  and 
Saint  Dympna! 

"I  will  go  in  then,"  she  said,  rising,  giving 
her  hand  with  a  queenly  gesture,  and  step- 
ping from  the  car.  "Thank  you,  monsieur. 
You  need  not  wait;  indeed  you  must  not 
wait.  I  am  here  with  friends.  Adieu!" 

She  clutched  my  arm  in  a  sudden  spasm  of 
fright. 

"Listen!"  she  whispered. 

A  piercing  wail  rose  from  the  quiet  cot- 
tage; a  dull  lamp  flared  as  it  was  borne 
hastily  past  a  window;  a  man's  deep  voice 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

groaned  horribly.  Children  in  the  loft, 
wakened  by  the  outcry,  began  to  scream, 
and  a  startled  dog  far  away  howled  in  terror. 
Madame  released  my  arm  and  walked 
slowly  toward  the  house  of  death.  At  the 
door  she  turned  and  looked  back  at  us  as  if 
she  feared  to  go  in.  Her  left  hand  fumbled 
for  the  latch;  her  right  waved  our  dismissal. 
"Adieu,  monsieur,  adieu,"  she  called  in  a 
strained,  unhappy  tone.  And  we  drove 
quietly  away  and  left  her  under  the  placid 
moon. 


II 

LOVE  IN  A  BARGE 

AITTLE  Spitz  ran  back  and  forth  on 
the  deck  of  the  lighter  Cornells  de 
Vriendt,  barking  defiance  at  all  the 
world  and  especially  at  me  for  my  efforts  to 
come  aboard.  Two  fat  Flemish  babies  clad 
only  in  shirts  and  no  underclothes  sat  in  the 
bow  watching  him. 

"Hay,  skipper,"  I  shouted,  "where  are 
you  ?  Call  off  your  dog ! " 

A  gigantic  shock  of  red  hair  appeared 
from  the  cabin,  followed  by  a  long  face, 
prodigiously  wrinkled,  and  a  thin  body  in 
blue  shirt  and  nondescript  trousers,  from 
which  protruded  broad  red  hands  and  naked 
feet.  Like  the  babies,  the  captain  stared  at 
me  in  silence  and  made  no  move  to  come 
nearer. 

[19] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Are  you  the  skipper?"  I  demanded,  los- 
ing patience. 

"/<z,  mynheer." 

"Call  off  your  dog.  I'm  the  American 
delegate  of  the  Relief  Committee." 

"What,  mynheer?" 

I  aimed  a  kick  at  the  dancing,  barking 
bundle  of  fur  and  feet,  lost  my  balance  on 
the  edge  of  the  wharf,  and  came  down  on  the 
sloping  deck  of  the  Cornells  de  Vriendt  on 
all  fours.  The  dog  went  wild,  and  the 
frightened  babies  howled,  but  the  skipper 
watched  motionless  as  before.  "What  did 
you  say,  mynheer?"  he  asked  imperturbably. 

It  seemed  no  time  for  the  French  or  Flem- 
ish languages.  In  an  emotional  crisis,  such 
as  a  deathbed  repentance  or  losing  one's 
heart  or  one's  temper,  the  tongue  turns  to  the 
speech  of  youth,  and  I  fell  to  cursing  in  most 
excellent  and  idiomatic  English.  The  shock- 
head  stared.  "For  God's  sake,  sir,"  he  ex- 
claimed at  last,  in  English  like  my  own, 
"are  you  a  British  spy?" 

"A  spy,   you  idiot?    I'm  the  American 

[20] 


Love  in  a  Barge 

delegate  of  the  Commission  for  Relief  in 
Belgium.  What  do  you  mean  by  staring 
at  me  like  that  and  letting  your  crazy  dog 
bark  his  head  off  at  me?  I'm  the  consignee 
of  this  cargo,  and  I've  come  to  inspect  it." 

The  bargeman  leaped  to  the  peak  of  the 
vessel  and  came  forward,  his  bare  toes  clutch- 
ing the  ridge  of  the  deck,  smacked  the  near- 
est infant  into  silence,  swore  at  the  dog,  and 
came  down  to  me.  He  drew  an  old  cap  from 
his  pocket  and  began  to  clean  my  clothes, 
using  the  cap  as  a  dust  cloth.  "I'm  sorry, 
sir,"  he  said  meekly,  "but  you  see,  sir,  I  has 
to  be  careful,  wot  with  the  Germans  and 
all." 

"With  that  accent  I  should  think  you 
would  have  to  be  careful,"  I  retorted  grimly. 

"Ow  no,  sir,"  he  returned,  "I'm  a  Belgian 
all  right-o,  but  I  'ave  served  my  time  in  the 
British  navy." 

"And  now  you're  skipper  of  a  barge!" 

He  smiled  and  scratched  his  head.  "There 
was  a  woman,  sir,  as  done  me  into  doing  it 
—leaving  the  navy,  I  mean.  O'  course  she 

[21] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

wasn't  the  first  woman  I  ever  see,  but  when 
I  saw  her  I  thort  she  was." 

"Well,  you're  a  funny  one!"  I  exclaimed 
heartily,  feeling  a  sudden  kinship  with  the 
lanky  red-crowned  scarecrow  before  me — a 
kinship  which  would  have  been  impossible 
without  our  common  language.  "Is  this 
Queen  of  Sheba  still  travelling  with  you?" 

"Beg  pardon,  sir?" 

"Is  your  wife  on  board?" 

"Yes,  indeed,  sir,  and  here  are  two  of  my 
little  shavers."  He  pointed  with  extraor- 
dinary pride  at  the  half-naked  youngsters 
clinging  to  their  precarious  seats  on  the 
sloping  deck.  "Fine  little  fellers,  aren't 
they,  sir?  I've  got  three  children,  and  there 
is  going  to  be  a  fourth.  These  is  twins — 
both  boys,"  he  said. 

"So  I  see,"  I  retorted.  The  jest  was  lost 
on  him.  "Well,  open  up  hatches  and  let's 
look  at  your  cargo." 

He  bent  to  the  fastenings  and  slipped  off 
the  round  lead  seals.  "Funny  thing  about 
these  Germans,  sir,  'ow  careful  they  are. 

[22] 


Love  in  a  Barge 

That  Johnny  standing  sentry-go  over  there" 
—he  pointed  to  the  lonely  watch  in  the  dis- 
tance— ,  "'e  always  comes  up  and  asks  me  for 
them  little  bits  of  lead.  I  gives  'em  to  'im, 
sir.  'E  gets  paid  for  'em  and  they  don't 
do  me  no  good,  so  I  gives  'em  to  him."  He 
lifted  the  first  hatch,  still  chatting  affably. 
"It's  a  good  lot  o'  flour,  sir,  as  I  sees  it. 
Only  up  at  Rotterdam  sometimes  they  has 
to  unload  too  fast,  and  they  piles  it  into  the 
lighters  in  all  kinds  o'  weather.  I've  got 
forty-eight  bags  of  bad  flour  in  'ere  myself — 
spoilt  by  the  rain  in  Rotterdam." 

"We  can  use  it  here  for  making  dog  bread." 
"They  uses  'ooks  on  the  bags,  too,  sir, 
and  that  ain't  right.  Ortn't  to  use  no  'ooks. 
They  always  break  the  bags.  Still,  they're 
a  good  sort  up  there,  and  they  treat  me  right 
so  far.  .  .  .  Now  this  flour,  sir,  it's  first 
rate — better  than  the  Belgians  is  used  to,  if 
I  do  say  it,  and  well  stowed,  ain't  it?"  He 
dusted  the  white  meal  from  his  hands  and 
replaced  the  hatches.  "It  ain't  bad,  is  it, 
sir?" 

[23] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Pretty  good,"  I  answered. 

"No,  I  don't  regret  being  skipper  on  a 
canal  boat  'stead  of  hordinary  seaman  bang- 
ing 'round  in  a  cruiser's  forecastle  and  target- 
practising  at  the  'Uns.  It's  an  awful  life, 
sea-faring  is,  sir.  A  man  wot  is  a  man  owes 
it  to  himself  to  marry  and  settle  down." 

"You  certainly  are  a  domestic  animal, 
skipper." 

He  grinned.  "Yes,  sir.  Why,  the  first 
time  I  sawr  'er  she  was  a-standing  behind 
the  till  in  a  sweets-shop,  in  Flushing,  and 
a-crying  'er  pretty  eyes  out." 

"Who  was?" 

"Blimey!  my  wife!  I  thort  I  'ad  told  you, 
sir." 

"You've  told  me  nothing." 

"It's  an  awful  life,  sea-faring  is,  sir — 

"You've  told  me  that  already,  but  what 
about  your  wife  ? " 

"Ow,  yes,  sir.     She  was  a-standing  behind 

the  counter  in  a  sweets-shop  and  a-crying 

'er  pretty  eyes  out,  and  I  come  in  just  off 

the  ship  with  a  'unger  for  sweets  so  strong 

[24] 


Love  in  a  Barge 

my  tongue  was  fair  'anging  out  of  my  mouth. 
(You  gets  that  way  banging  round  in  a 
cruiser's  forecastle,  sir.) 

"Sniff—  sniff—  sniff 'What'll  ye  'ave, 

mynheer?'  she  says  to  me. 

"'Good-day  juffrouw,  and  what's  the  mat- 
ter with  you,  my  pretty  dear?'  I  says  back 
at  her.  Til 'ave  a  kiss,' I  says. 

"'You'll  'ave  nothing  of  the  sort,  you  bad 
man,'  she  says,  wiping  her  eyes  and  glaring 
at  me. 

"'Juffrouw,'  I  says,  free  and  easy,  'I'm 
just  off  ship  and  I'm  'ungry — so  'ungry  I 
could  fair  eat  you — and  I  never  see  a  pretty 
maid  crying  but  I  kiss  'er  tears  away.  I 
ain't  been  drinking  either.  I  ain't  a  drink- 
ing man.' 

"I  was  serious  for  all  my  glib  talk,  sir.  I 
was  that  serious  as  I'd  never  been  in  my 
life  before;  and,  between  ourselves,  sir,  though 
I  'ate  to  admit  it,  I  didn't  kiss  no  tears  away 
that  day.  She  wouldn't  'ave  it. 

"Wot  was  she  weeping  for?  She'd  just 
lorst  'er  sweetheart,  sir,  that  was  wot  for! 

[25] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

'E  was  a  sheep-faced  Dutchman — I  sawr  'im 
afterward,  I  did,  and  he  'adn't  a  merit  to 
'im.  She  didn't  really  love  'im,  but  she 
thort  she  did,  and  that's  where  I  come  in 
a-asking  for  a  kiss! 

"'Oom  Jan/  she  yells  to  the  back  of  the 
shop.  'Come  'ere  and  throw  out  this  drunken 
sailor-man.' 

"Lucky  for  me  'er  uncle  didn't  'ear  'er, 
so  I  leans  across  the  counter  and  I  says  very 
serious,  'JufFrouw,  I  love  you.  Tell  me, 
wot's  the  tears  about?"  .  .  . 

"I  tell  you,  sir,"  he  interrupted  his  story 
to  observe,  "in  dealing  with  women  tell 
'em  the  truth  first  pop.  If  you  love  'em, 
tell  'em  so.  Lies  is  all  right  in  dealing  man 
to  man,  but  with  the  wimmen,  tell  'em  the 
truth. 

"So  it  wasn't  long  till  we  was  fair  intimate. 
I  'ung  'round  'er  shop  for  three  days,  I  did, 
and  then  I  thort  as  'ow  I  might  take  a  few 
liberties  with  'er. 

"No/  she  says,  'nothing  of  that,  George. 
I  want  to  make  you  a  good  wife/  she  says. 
[26] 


Love  in  a  Barge 

"'Wife,'  I  says  to  myself.  I  was  sitting 
in  the  potaties  all  right-o,  with  a  quid  a 
month  and  no  'ome  ner  nothing.  Wife!  Wot 
*ave  I  let  myself  in  for?'  But  she  was  that 
simple  'carted  I  couldn't  say  no  to  'er  and  I 
loved  her  fair  to  distraction. 

"I  went  back  to  my  ship,  but  I  couldn't 
stand  it,  so  at  last  I  gave  it  up  and  went 
to  her  and  we  was  married  in  a  church  and 
set  up  'ousekeeping  in  a  barge!" 

A  sharp  voice  from  the  cabin  cut  short 
our  colloquy.  The  skipper  jumped  as  if  shot. 
"Coming,  coming,"  he  called  in  a  very  re- 
spectful voice,  "coming,  my  dear!" 

"It's "  I  left  the  useless  question  un- 
finished. I  knew  it  was  the  Queen  of  Sheba, 
the  heroine  of  the  sweets-shop  in  Flushing, 
the  Mrs.  Noah  of  the  barge. 

"Yes,  it's  my  wife.  A  strong  bellus  she 
has,  sir:  good  lungs;  and  the  little  shavers 
has  'em,  too."  He  pointed  to  the  babies  on 
the  deck.  "Sea-faring  men  needs  good  lungs, 
you  know,  sir.  But  my  lads  don't  seem  to 
take  much  to  salt  water,  sir.  They  prefers 
[27] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

canals.  They  gets  sick  on  the  Hollandsch 
Diep.  Can't  make  sailor-men  o'  them,  sir." 

"Sailor-men!"  I  retorted.  "What  about 
that  cruiser's  forecastle  talk  you  were  giving 
me,  and  marrying  and  settling  down?  Were 
you  joking  with  me,  skipper?  Isn't  love  in 
a  barge  all  it's  cracked  up  to  be?" 

"No,  sir;  yes,  sir,"  he  said,  answering  both 
my  questions  at  once  but  pulling  a  very  sober 
face.  "A  man  what  is  a  man  owes  it  to  his- 
self  to  marry  and  settle  down.  But  a  lad, 
now!  that's  another  question,  sir.  I  tell  you, 
sir,  confidential-like,  I'm  going  to  name  the 
next  lad  after  Sir  David  Beatty!" 

"Whew!"  I  whistled.  "And  if  the  lad  is 
a  girl?" 

"I'll  name  her  'Rule  Brittania,'  sir — if  my 
wife  agrees.  .  .  .  Coming,  coming,  my  dear; 
coming,"  he  called.  "Good  day,  sir;  thank 
you,  sir." 


[28] 


Ill 

THE  ODYSSEY  OF  MR.  SOLSLOG 

YOU-ALL  are  in  charge  of  the  Relief 
Commission,    suh?     I    am    Mistah 
Solslog,   of  Alabama.     I'm   lookin' 
for  my  sistah." 

The  tense  blue  eyes  of  my  fellow-country- 
man stared  at  me  searchingly,  and  I  at  him. 
He  wore  a  rubber  collar  and  a  false  shirt 
front  of  a  style  which  afforded  popular  sub- 
jects for  caricature  twenty-five  years  ago. 
His  salt-and-pepper  suit  was  cheap,  horribly 
cheap,  thin,  cotton,  summer  weight,  but 
immaculate.  His  hat — an  old,  well-brushed 
Stetson — was  in  his  hand.  He  had  no 
luggage.  In  the  cold  winter  light  of  my 
office  in  Antwerp  his  slight,  lean  features 
looked  prematurely  aged,  but  neither  age 
nor  hardship  had  changed  the  character- 
istically even  Southern  drawl. 
[29] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Sit  down,  Mr.  Solslog,"  I  said.  "We're 
feeding  eleven  hundred  thousand  Belgians 
here,  and  clothing  and  giving  work,  too,  but 
an  American  citizen  certainly  has  a  claim." 

His  face  reddened.  "Thank  you,  suh, 
but  it  ain't  that  sort  of  help  I  reequiah, 
Preehaps  you  did  not  understand  me.  I'm 
a-lookin'  for  my  sistah." 

"Yes?" 

"She  was  in  Maubeuge  when  the  war 
broke  out."  He  pronounced  it  Maw-booge. 
"She  was  a  governess,  suh.  I  read  in  the 
Atlanta  Constitution  that  war  was  declared. 
That  was  on  a  Sunday.  I  quit  my  job  in 
the  lumberyard  an'  come  straight  over  here 
on  the  old  Saint  Paul,  and  I  ain't  found  her 
— not  yet." 

"But,  Mr.  Solslog,  it's  February  now. 
You  left  America  in  August?" 

"Yes,  suh,"  he  said  gently.  "I  come  in 
August." 

"Where  have  you  been,  then,  in  the  mean- 
time?" I  demanded. 

"Well,  suh,  first  I  went  to  Maw-booge." 
[30! 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

"The  Germans  captured  Maubeuge  on 
August  2yth;  they  took  the  fortress  on  Sep- 
tember 6th." 

"Yes,  suh.  I  know  they  did.  I  was 
there.  You  don't  quite  understand  me.  I 
was  lookin'  for  my  sistah." 

The  man  amazed,  angered,  and  puzzled 
me.  Common-sense  told  me  that  the  Ger- 
mans allowed  no  one — least  of  all  a  stray 
American- — to  wander  into  Belgium,  inside 
the  German  lines,  on  the  flimsy  excuse  of 
"  looking  for  his  sister,"  but  here  was  just  such 
a  man.  Worst  of  all,  he  really  seemed  simple 
and  candid:  the  more  dangerous  as  a  spy, 
probably,  though  what  he  was  to  spy  upon 
I  had  not  the  ghost  of  an  idea. 

" Sprechen  Sie  Deutsch,  Herr  Solslog?  Wa- 
rum  sind  Sie  hier  in  Belgien  ?  Sind  Sie 
Spion  ?  Vous  parlez  Fran$ais,  n'est-ce  pas  ? 
Fous  etes  espion,  oui  ?  'ut  U  Feaamsch  klap- 
pen  ?"  I  shot  at  him  rapidly. 

He  smiled  a  smile  which  disarmed  my  sus- 
picions, a  pathetic,  whimsical,  puzzled  smile. 
"People   are  always   sayin*  things  to  me  I 
[31) 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

cain't  understand  in  these  here  foreign  coun- 
tries. No,  suh,  I  don't  understand  any 
language  but  plain  You-nited  States.  I  can 
say  'uh  franc,  doo  franc' — that's  French, 
you  know,  suh — and  I  know  'Muhsoor', 
that's  French  for  'Mistah'  and  'my  sistah.' 
I'll  never  forget  that  word. 

"It's  like  this,  suh:  I  got  up  almost  to 
Maw-booge — oh,  yes,  suh,  I  had  a  pass. 
I  got  up  there  with  the  French.  Just  walked 
along  with  'em;  they  couldn't  understand 
me;  I  couldn't  understand  them,  but  we 
walked  along.  Then  we  got  'most  to  Maw- 
booge  where  my  sistah  was — red  roofs,  like 
all  them  pretty  towns  in  France — I  could  see 
the  town,  fightin'  everywhere.  I  was  with  a 
battery,  what  they  call  swasuntcans.  The 
officer  could  speak  my  language. 

"Go  back,'  he  says.  'Go with  these  refugee 
people.'  Everybody  was  runnin'  away — the 
fields  was  full  of  'em,  dirty  and  tired,  but 
still  runnin'.  'Go  to  Paris,'  he  says. 

"'But  I'm  lookin'  for  my  sistah,'  I 
says. 

[32! 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

"'She'll  most  likely  be  in  Paris.  Go 
quick,'  he  says. 

"We  was  standin'  in  a  poppy  field,  his 
battery  was  firing  in  fours — pop!  pop!  pop! 
pop ! — like  that.  A  German  ae-reoplane  come 
over  like  a  big  bee  and  dropped  a  bomb. 
They  screamed  and  run,  everybody  did,  but 
the  bomb  busted  and  nothin'  come  out  but 
powdered  lime.  Then  everybody  laughed. 
But  in  three  minutes  more  the  Germans  was 
a-droppin'  shells  all  over  us.  That  lime  was 
just  a  marker. 

"They  hit  my  officer  friend.  'Git  out,' 
he  says  again  to  me,  'Git  out  quick.'  His 
fingers  dug  into  the  poppies,  he  was  hurt  so 
bad;  hit  in  the  stomach.  Then  he  kind  of 
smiled  once  and  pulled  off  a  poppy  flower 
and  held  it  up  to  me.  'Here's  a  red  poppy — 
the  blood  of  France,'  he  says.  'Take  it  as  a 
souvenir,  and  git  out.' 

"They  got  me,  though — the  Germans  did. 
I  was  in  Mardeevay"  (I  have  no  idea  what 
the  name  of  the  town  was)  "when  they  come 
in.  After  all  the  fightin'  I'd  seen  I  went  to 

[33] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

sleep  in  a  church,  and  along  come  the  Ger- 
mans. They  was  massacreein'  the  people. 
They  wanted  to  shoot  me,  too,  but  one  of 
'em  understood  my  lingo  and  he  took  me  to 
the  gen'ral.  'So  you're  an  English  spy,'  he 
says  politely.  'We'll  examine  you  a  little 
bit,  and  then  we'll  have  you  shot.  Good- 
day,'  he  says.  Then  they  drug  me  into  a 
little  room  in  the  town  hall  and  kep'  me  there. 
But  next  day  come  a  man  who  spoke  You- 
nited  States;  he'd  been  in  Birmingham, 
Alabama — funny,  ain't  it,  how  they  travel?— 
and  he  found  out  I  wasn't  no  spy. 

"Then  I  went  to  Paris " 

"You  went  to  Paris  from  inside  the  Ger- 
man lines?" 

Mr.  Solslog  smiled  his  slow,  child-like 
smile.  "Yes,  suh.  It  wasn't  hard  a-tall. 
I  was  captured  by  the  French.  You  see, 
suh,  it  ain't  hard  to  travel  about  in  the 
war  so  long  as  the  fightin'  is  goin'  on.  Them 
French  peesants  was  captured  by  the  Ger- 
mans, then  captured  by  the  French,  then 
captured  by  the  Germans  again,  then  cap- 

[34l 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

tured  by  their  own  people  again.  It's  when 
the  armies  sits  down  and  quits  fightin'  on 
their  feet  that  you  cain't  git  around.  I 
could  a-gone  from  Berlin  right  to  Paris 
through  all  the  fightin'  durin'  the  first  month 
of  the  war,  before  the  battle  of  the  Marne. 

"Funny  thing  about  that  battle.  I  was 
all  through  it,  and  I  never  knowed  till  after- 
ward in  Paris  that  it  was  the  battle  of  the 
Marne. 

"Then  I  got  to  Paris.  Paris  was  awful, 
half  dead,  Zeppelins  comin'  over  most  every 
night,  government  in  Bordoo.  I  got  to  the 
Embassy " 

"Mr.  Solslog,"  I  interrupted,  "how  on 
earth  did  you  get  about  knowing  not  a  word 
of  French?" 

"Oh,  I  made  mistakes,  in  course.  But  an 
American  can  do  anything,  suh;  can  git 
anywhere  he  has  a  mind  to,  I  mean.  They 
was  always  some  one  who  could  say  a  few 
words  of  my  language — English  Tommies, 
American  reporters — they  was  everywhere  I 
went." 

[35] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"But  money?" 

"I  had  a  hundred  and  forty  francs  when 
I  got  to  Paris.  I  paid  for  everything,"  he 
said  proudly,  "and  they  never  cheated  me 
so's  I  could  notice  it.  They're  great  people, 
the  Frenchies.  Once  I  worked  for  'em  two 
weeks  in  one  of  their  field  hospitals,  just  be- 
cause I  liked  'em.  ' Muhsoor  luh  American/ 
they  called  me.  ' Muhsoor' — that's  French 

for  'Mistah'  and  'my  sis But  I  told  you 

that  beefore. 

"I  got  a  pass  from  the  Embassy 

"How  did  you  do  that?" 

"I  told  'em  about  my  sistah.  They 
hadn't  had  word  about  her,  so  I  got  the  pass. 
Then  I  got  a  pass  from  General  Caselnow 
and  went  to  the  front."  His  tired  eyes 
gleamed  restlessly  as  he  went  on.  "You- 
all  here  cain't  imagine  it,  I  reckon,  how  dirty 
it  is  and  how  it  stinks.  War  is  mostly  bad 
smells.  The  men  cain't  wash,  they're  covered 
with  live  things,  flies  is  awful,  rotten  horses 
and  rotten  men  have  to  lie  about,  sometimes 
for  weeks,  till  people  can  bury  'em.  Sol- 
[36] 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

diers  marching  through  a  town  you  can  smell 
for  blocks  sometimes. 

"I  got  arrested,  in  course,  but  the  Frenchies 
is  always  kind.  It's  the  English  is  hard. 
They  locked  me  up  in  Calais;  wouldn't  lis- 
ten to  me.  I  told  'em  about  my  sistah, 
but  they  only  laughed.  They  let  me  write 
to  the  Embassy,  though,  and  Mr.  Herrick 
made  'em  release  me.  That  was  in  Novem- 
ber, I  think,  and  I  hadn't  had  word  of  my 
sistah. 

"Then  I  went  to  London  on  an  empty 
horse  transport.  They  knew  I  was  stowed 
away  on  it,  all  right,  and  it  was  'gainst  orders, 
so  they  chased  me — tried  to  find  me  all 
night.  The  transport  was  awful  dirty  after 
all  them  horses  had  been  in  it,  but  I  had  to 
git  to  London  to  see  if  they  had  got  word  of 
my  sistah.  I  slid  down  a  ventilator  and  lit 
in  a  horse  stall.  It  half  killed  me:  knocked 
me  plum  out  and  sprained  my  back  so's  I 
couldn't  run  no  more.  They  come  a-snoopin' 
round  with  lanterns,  right  up  into  the  stall, 
till  the  light  fell  plum  on  my  face.  I  didn't 

l37l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

hardly  breathe,  but  my  hurt  back  seemed 
broken  right  through,  so  I  says,  'Here  I 
am/  An'  they  found  me. 

"They  talk  a  queer  kind  of  language,  the 
English  do :  it's  a  little  like  ours,  and  they're 
more  like  us  Americans  than  the  Frenchies, 
or  the  Dutchmen,  or  the  Germans.  They 
helped  me  up,  cussed  me  out  a  lot;  but  they 
got  hot  water  and  bathed  my  back,  and  one 
of  'em,  a  dirty  hostler  from  Chelsea,  he 
bedded  me  down  for  the  rest  of  the  night 
and  give  me  tobacco.  So  I  got  along  all 
right.  They  smuggled  me  off. 

"Mr.  Page's  secretary  in  London  told  me 
they  hadn't  heard  of  my  sistah,  and  he  sent 
me  to  see  Hoover's  committee — the  com- 
mittee to  send  Americans  home,  preehaps 
you  know.  It  was  about  closed  up,  but 
I  didn't  want  to  go  home,  not  without  my 
sistah,  and  they  hadn't  any  word  of  her,  so 
I  went  back  to  the  Embassy.  They  was 
a  man  there.  I  misrecollect  his  name  now, 
he  was  very  good  to  me.  He  told  me  to  go 
home.  I  says  I  wouldn't — without  my 
[38] 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

sistah  I  wouldn't,  so  he  helped  me  to  git 
over  to  Holland.  Oh,  I  forgot  to  tell  you, 
suh,  I  was  sick  in  London;  had  some  kind  of 
fever  and  stayed  in  the  hospital  two  months. 
It  hurts  me  still  here,"  he  pointed  solemnly 
at  his  forehead.  "I  had  awful  dreams: 
dreamed  that  the  Germans  had  caught  my 
sistah — they  had  her  in  a  little  house,  and 
she  was  screamin'."  His  eyes  lighted  dread- 
fully. "You-all  cain't  understand  it,  pree- 
haps,  but  I  hear  her  screamin'  'most  every 
night  and  sometimes  in  the  daytime  if  I 
ain't  feeling  very  well.  Listen!  Listen,  suh! 
I'm  huntin'  for  my  sistah,  and  you-all  must 
help  me!  You-all's  got  to  help  me,  or  I'll — I'll 
— I'll  go  crazy — I'll  kill  somebody!" 

The  soft  Southern  drawl  mounted  to  a 
shriek,  and  my  visitor  had  me  by  the  throat. 
I  fought  him  off  desperately.  His  sickness 
had  weakened  him,  or  else  he  would  have 
throttled  me.  Suddenly  his  hands  relaxed, 
his  eyes  lost  their  light,  and  he  spoke  again 
in  the  slow,  gentle  voice  he  had  first 
used: 

[39] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"You-all  must  pardon  me,  suh.  I — I'm 
right  ashamed  of  myself.  I've  spoiled  your 
tie."  He  deftly  rearranged  the  crumpled 
folds  before  I  could  interfere.  "I — I  reckon 
I'm  not  quite  reesponsible  when  I  think  of— 
of  things  that  might  have  happened.  It's 
seven  months,  suh,  and  I  ain't  had  word  of 
my  sistah."  He  drew  out  a  tattered  paper, 
stamped  with  many  stamps,  sealed  with 
many  seals,  and  showed  me  a  line  in  German 
script. 

"To  look  for  his  sister,  reported  to  be  in 
Maubeuge  at  the  beginning  of  the  war." 

"I  cain't  read  what  the  German  says," 
he  observed  quietly. 

"To  go  to  Antwerp,  Brussels,  Mons, 
Charleroi,  Maubeuge,  Dinant,  Namur,  Liege,'* 
I  translated  aloud,  "to  look  for  his  sister." 

Months  later  Mr.  Solslog  came  again. 
There  is  a  gentleman  in  the  reception 
room  waiting  for  monsieur:  an  American 
gentleman "  Leon  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders expressively,  spread  out  his  palms, 

[40] 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

and  went  on  in  a  rapid  whisper:  "He 
asked  for  monsieur.  Nothing  else  could 
I  understand.  He  has  waited  for  monsieur 
four  hours,  and  he  talks,  talks  to  himself 
always!" 

From  the  hall  I  heard  a  steady  gentle 
voice  talking,  talking,  talking.  "Mr.  Sol- 
slog,"  I  hailed  him.  The  voice  stopped. 
He  must  have  stepped  swiftly  from  the  thick 
carpet  to  the  tiled  floor  of  the  hall,  for  he 
came  like  a  man  running. 

"You-all  here,  suh,"  he  asked,  without 
an  interrogative  lift  to  the  question.  "Let 
me — let  me  hold  on  to  your  hand  for  a  minute. 
I — I'm  right  glad  to  see  you.  They've  just 
—I've  just  got  out."  He  gathered  his  voice 
and  breath  for  a  tremendous  effort.  His 
next  sentence  came  like  a  blast  of  prophecy. 
"Oh,  may  God  damn  the  Germans  1"  he 
screamed. 

"Leon,"  I  shouted,  "bring  brandy,  quick!" 

"Oh,  no,  suh;  not  for  me.  I  don't  use 
it."  Mr.  Solslog  gently  released  my  hands 
and  walked  beside  me  into  the  reception 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

room.  His  face  was  whiter  than  before, 
the  lines  in  it  deeper,  and  the  pathetic,  patient 
eyes  stranger  than  when  I  had  seen  him  last; 
but  the  fever  fit  of  passion  passed  and  left 
him  calm  as  usual. 

"I  haven't  found  my  sistah — it  isn't 
that,"  he  explained  in  his  slow,  drawling 
voice.  "I've  jist  got  out  of  prison  here  in 
Antwerp,  suh.  I  told  the  German  officer 
if  I  ever  see  him  again  I'll  kill  him.  I'm 
going  to  kill  him  if  I  ever  see  him  again. 
I'm  going  to " 

"  Yes/yes,"  I  said  soothingly.  The  monoto- 
nous recitative  I  had  heard  on  first  enter- 
ing the  house  had  begun. 

"I  told  him  I'd  kill  him,  I'd  kill  him,  suh, 
kill  him,  I'd  kill  him " 

"But  your  sister?" 

"Oh,  yes."  He  gathered  himself  together. 
"I  went  to  Brussels  and  Charleyroy — I  say 
I'll  kill  him — and  Maw-booge.  She  ain't 
there — at  none  of  those  places.  I  dream 
about  her  all  the  time,  I  see  her  and  hear 
her.  Preehaps  you  don't  altogether  under- 

[42] 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

stand  me.  Suh — they're  chokin'  her — and 
— and  mistreatin'  her,  the  Germans  are, 
suh;  and  she's  callin'  to  me — screamin' 
and  callin' — I  told  him  I'd  kill  him!  Then  I 
come  back  to  Malines.  I  got  a  paper  from 
the  burgomaster  to  go  out  and  see  'em  diggin' 
up  the  dead  Belgian  soldiers  and  buryin' 
'em  in  new  cemeteries."  Some  wild,  morbid 
impulse  must  have  led  him  to  do  this  thing. 
"And  the  Germans  caught  me,  suh.  They 
said  my  passport  was  expired.  I  cain't  read 
German,  suh,  so  how  was  I  to  know?  They 
drug  me  up  here  to  Antwerp,  and  a  German 
officer — I  told  him  I'd  kill  him — and  in  the 
police  place,  he  said  I  was  an  English  spy. 
They  stripped  me,  suh.  They  searched 
my  skin.  They  took  photygraphs  of  my 
clothes  and  looked  at  my  collar  against  a 
light.  They  even  went  over  my  money  with 
a  microscope  and  looked  under  my  hair  to 
see  if  anything  was  tattooed  on  to  me.  I 
told  that  officer  I'd  kill  him! 

"' Where  is  your  baggage?'  he  says. 

"'I  haven't  got  any.' 

[431 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"'You  damned  spy— I  told  him  I'd  kill 

him — *y°u  dirty  spy,'  he  says. 

"'I'm  just  as  clean  as  you  are,'  I  told  him. 

'I  buy  a  shirt  when  I  need  it.     I  reckon  I'm 

as  clean  as  you,  and  I'll  kill  you!' 

"He  jumped  at  me  and  beat  me  with  his 

fists.     Til  kill  you!     Some  day  I'll  kill  you,' 

I  says.     They  wouldn't  let  me  sleep;  hectored 

me  for  two  nights,  but  'I'll  kill  you,'  I  says 

to  him.     Til- 
He  rose  to  his  feet  and  faced  me,  then  his 

knees  sagged,   and  slowly,  very  slowly,  he 

fell  over  in  a  dead  faint. 

There  is  little  to  add  to  this  strange 
tale.  The  wilder  wanderings  of  a  sick 
mind  followed  the  wild  wanderings  of  his 
broken  body.  He  was  lodged  in  a  private 
house  where  he  had  good  care,  but  his 
case  was  hopeless  from  the  start.  About 
a  month  before  his  death  I  received 
a  note  written  in  his  own  hand.  It  read : 

"They  says  I  am  vury  sick  but  I  doo  not 
beleeve  them  in  a  few  days  moor  I  am  gooen 

[441 


The  Odyssey  of  Mr.  Solslog 

back  to  Mawbooj.     I  beleeve  my  sister  is 
there  still  goodbie. 

Yurs  truly 

MR.  SOLSLOG." 
His  sister  was  never  found. 


[4Sl 


IV 

FIGURES  OF  THE  DANCE 

THE  poet  finished  his  recitation  and 
resumed  his  cigarette,  waiting  for 
our  applause. 

"It  is  a  man  absolutely  extraordinary," 
murmured  the  dancing-master  across  the 
table  at  my  left,  under  cover  of  the  hand- 
clapping.  "He  is  the  greatest  poet  of  Bel- 
gium, monsieur.  Verhaeren,  Cammaerts, 
Maeterlinck — they  are  nothing.  If  you  bring 
him  an  album — presto!  he  writes  you  an 
ode  in  it." 

In  the  tight  little  supper-room  over  the 
Cafe  de  la  Toisond  'Or  we  were  sweltering 
and  dining  at  the  expense  of  McTeague.  It 
was  a  night  in  August,  and  the  heat  of  noon 
had  not  yet  died  out  of  the  boulevards  and 
streets  of  Brussels,  ville  basse.  The  cheap 
[46] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

cotton  curtains  at  the  two  windows  fronting 
on  the  avenue  waved  languidly  to  and  fro, 
and  the  air  of  the  room  reeked  with  ciga- 
rette smoke  and  the  odours  of  Belgian  cook- 
ing. 

McTeague  sat  at  the  table's  head — a 
huge,  lonely,  unsophisticated  American,  with 
a  mop  of  gray  hair  topping  a  face  like  a 
child's,  tired  eyes,  slightly  Roman  nose, 
and  what  once  was  a  rose-bud  mouth.  At 
his  right  was  Yvette,  the  dancer  of  the 
Scala;  pretty,  of  course,  the  big,  muscular, 
operatic-soprano  type  of  beauty  rather  than 
the  petite  beings  we  usually  think  of  in  the 
dance;  sleek,  serpentine,  appraising  the  world 
about  her.  Next  her  was  I;  then  Yvette's 
husband,  the  poet;  then  Guilbert,  her  dancing- 
master. 

"Thanks!  thanks!  I  thank  you  infinitely, 
monsieur.  Bravo!  Bis,  bis!"  said  McTeague, 
in  his  heavy  Scotian  French. 

"No,  no,  monsieur,"  the  poet  answered 
gloomily,  shaking  his  head.  "I  demand 
pardon,  but  no." 

[471 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Ah,  it  is  the  war,  then!  You  feel  such  a 
sadness  that  you  cannot  be  gay,  monsieur?'* 

"No,  it  is  not  the  war.  What  is  the  war? 
It  is  of  nations.  For  me  nations  are  noth- 
ing: men,  men — Pushkin,  Byron,  Whitman, 
Schiller,  Napoleon,  Goethe,  Victor  Hugo — 
those  for  me  are  worth  while.  The  rest?  Pah!" 

"Oh,  la,  la,  la,  la!" 

"Do  not  mind,  monsieur,"  the  dancing- 
master  whispered  ecstatically,  as  if  he  feared 
such  sentiments  might  offend  me,  "it  is  a 
poet,  nest-ce  pas?  Art — art — that  is  a 
world  of  itself."  He  mopped  his  forehead, 
beaded  with  drops  of  perspiration,  his  little 
black  eyes  rolled  in  his  head,  and  he  drummed 
on  the  tablecloth  as  if  his  fingertips  would 
do  the  office  of  his  toes.  The  man  was 
a  genuine  enthusiast.  To  dance  and  to 
teach  others  to  dance — that  was  life! 

"Yvette,  you  have  brought  your  ballet 
costume  so  you  can  dance  for  messieurs  the 
Americans?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  my  old  Guilbert,"  she  answered 
languidly. 

[48] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

"Come,  then." 

We  drained  our  coffee  cups  reluctantly, 
rose  from  the  table,  and  stirred  out  into  the 
hot  passageway, Yvette  and  McTeague  ahead, 
old  Guilbert  following  with  me,  the  poet  trail- 
ing behind.  Through  little  winding  streets, 
dusky,  sleepy,  and  sweltering  we  passed, 
and  at  length  out  beside  the  Maison  du  Roi 
and  the  golden  Flemish  splendours  of  the 
corporation  halls  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville  on 
the  Grand'  Place.  We  wound  through  the 
lines  of  German  sentries  and  up  the  steps  of 
a  new  restaurant — the  Cafe  du  Cid — up 
dirty,  twisting  stairs  behind  the  bar  rail,  to 
the  dancing-hall  where  Guilbert  taught. 

"Now,"  he  exclaimed  in  rapture,  turning 
on  his  toes  with  a  movement  of  astonishing 
grace  for  one  so  old  and  fat.  "Monsieur 
le  poete  to  the  piano!  Madame  Yvette  to 
the  dressing-room,  quick!  Messieurs  les 
Americains,  seat  yourselves,  if  you  please! 
Quick!  Quick!  Quick!  Everybody! 

"Messieurs!"  He  flung  up  his  fingers 
and  addressed  us  as  we  sank  languidly  into 

[491 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

chairs  before  the  open  windows.     "It  is  a 
dance    which    I    have    myself    composed— 
the  dance  of  the  ourang-outang.     I  am  he — 
the    great    man-ape.     I    dance    so.     ... 
Music!"  he  called  to  the  poet  at  the  piano. 

"  Music !         Moussorgsky — slow — terrible — 

i " 
so! 

The  poet  smote  the  ivory  keys,  keys  yel- 
low as  the  teeth  of  an  old  horse,  and  the 
dance  began  solo.  Old  Guilbert  swayed  and 
leaped  over  the  dusty  floor  under  the  hanging 
lamps — swayed  and  leaped  heavily,  horribly, 
bestially,  while  the  wild  music  of  the  piano 
panted  and  coughed  through  the  room.  The 
hot  night  air  doubtless  added  to  the  grim 
effect  on  McTeague  and  me.  I  seemed  to 
breathe  the  very  exhalations  of  a  jungle,  and 
watched  as  if  fascinated  the  contortions  of 
the  dancing-master. 

As  he  danced  he  roared  explanations  and 
orders.  "It  is  a  forest,  messieurs,  and  I, 
the  ourang-outang,  I  dance  in  the  moon- 
light under  the  trees,  so,  and  so,  and  so; 
and  as  I  dance  I  long  for  something  to  love, 

[SO] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

something  to  destroy.  I  am  seeking  here, 
there,  as  I  dance.  .  .  .  Ah!  I  have 
found  her — there,  there!'* 

He  made  an  extraordinary  succession  of 
leaps  toward  Madame  Yvette's  dressing- 
room,  and  suddenly  she  floated  out  before 
us,  her  heavy  body  spinning  on  her  toes, 
light  as  a  cloud  and  almost  as  swift;  her 
eyes  half  closed,  her  hands  at  her  breast,  a 
Liberty  cap  on  her  head;  and  at  the  end  of 
her  turn  she  sank  quietly  into  a  heap  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor. 

Guilbert's  horrid  dance  began  again,  and 
the  rapid  flow  of  his  explanation:  "She  is 
asleep,  messieurs,  this  fay  in  the  forest." 
He  paused  ecstatically  before  her.  "I  have 
found  her,  I  love  her,  I  will  have  her,  I  shall 
win  her  by  my  dancing."  He  touched  her 
on  the  breast.  She  leaped  to  her  feet  and 
spun  across  the  floor  like  a  whirlwind,  terror 
and  amazement  and  grace  and  voluptuous- 
ness all  portrayed  in  her  movements.  The 
ape  leaped  after  her,  dancing  round  and 
round  her,  enmeshing  her  like  a  firefly  in  a 

[Si] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

cage  of  grass.  Her  eyes  grew  wider  with 
terror,  she  danced  this  way  and  that,  try- 
ing to  escape  him;  he  seized  her,  and  she 
flew  to  right  and  left,  still  fast  in  his  clutches; 
she  leaped  straight  up,  and  he  caught  her 
firmly  in  his  arms  and  yelled,  actually  yelled, 
with  delight. 

And  then — it  seems  utterly  impossible  even 
as  I  tell  it — into  the  music  came  a  wild,  un- 
holy burst  of  "The  Watch  on  the  Rhine." 
The  two  figures  on  the  floor  leaped  and  cur- 
veted. A  hoarse  cheer  rose  to  us  from  out- 
side, and  below  the  windows  I  saw  three 
ecstatic  German  soldiers  swaying  and  bellow- 
ing applause.  .  .  .  The  ape  held  the 
forest-fay  securely  as  they  danced.  .  .  . 
It  must  have  been  the  music  which  first 
warned  me  of  change,  for  into  the  German 
hymn  stole  a  wilder  motif — the  great  chords 
of  an  alien  theme  intruded,  fought,  con- 
quered, and  swept  over  the  fragments  of 
the  old,  and  like  a  wild  mob  of  music  burst- 
ing from  prisons  of  silence  poured  forth 
the  "Marseillaise."  The  dance  was  sym- 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

bolic,  then:  Germany  and  Europe!  The 
conquest  of  the  world!  .  .  .  The  knit 
figures  still  swayed  and  leaped,  but  the  ape 
was  weakening.  The  taller  figure  of  the 
woman  slowly  dominated  and  then  sub- 
merged the  male.  With  a  sudden  thrust 
she  flung  him  prone,  but  the  music  went  on. 
There  came  a  howl  at  our  backs,  and  I  saw 
the  soldiers  in  the  square  below  waving  their 
rifles  and  dancing  with  anger. 

McTeague  stared  as  if  he  were  just  re- 
covering from  a  trance,  shook  himself  clum- 
sily, and  muttered  through  the  "Marseillaise" : 
"Strange,  isn't  it,  how  artistic  these  Belgians 
are?  Now  if  you  and  I  were  arranging  a 
dance " 

The  loud  howls  of  the  Germans  beneath  us 
interrupted  McTeague's  moralizings.  Swift 
feet  were  upon  the  stair,  the  proprietor  of 
the  cafe  and  his  wife  burst  in  upon  us, 
weeping,  gesticulating,  talking  all  at  once. 
Guilbert  lay  quietly  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  still  acting  his  part;  the  poet  at  the 
piano  pounded  lustily.  Yvette,  more  prac- 

[53] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

tical  than  they,  ran  to  a  window  at  the  back 
of  the  hall  and  looked  out,  then  ran  back  to 
us  and  grasped  us.  "Come  quickly,"  she 
exclaimed.  "We  can  escape  before  the  Ger- 
mans come." 

"But  your  husband,  and  Guilbert?"  I 
asked. 

"Drag  them  behind  us,  then,"  she  replied, 
shrugging  her  naked  shoulders.  "Come  at 
once.  The  Germans  are  on  the  stair!" 

Directly  beneath  our  feet  we  heard  a 
tumult  of  rough  voices,  a  clatter  of  dishes 
and  pans,  and  then  tramping  boots  coming 
up  the  winding  stair.  Panic  seized  on  Mc- 
Teague  and  me  simultaneously.  We  leaped 
at  the  .performers  and  hustled  them  across 
the  floor  behind  the  twinkling  feet  of  the 
dancing-girl.  Before  we  reached  the  window 
she  had  already  scrambled  through  it  and 
dropped  to  a  roof  five  or  six  feet  below.  We 
leaped  after  her  and  ran  across  a  space  slop- 
ing like  a  deck.  Guilbert  and  the  poet  had 
not  yet  spoken  a  word.  I  had  begun  to 
laugh — a  wild,  hysterical  laugh  which  irri- 

[54] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

tated  McTeague,  so  that  while  we  ran  he 
remonstrated  with  me:  "Germans — '11  hear 
— come  after  us,"  he  panted.  "What — 's 
matter — now?" 

Yvette  stopped  abruptly  before  a  white- 
washed wall  and  gazed  up  at  an  open  window 
three  feet  above  the  level  of  her  head. 

"Lift  me  up,  messieurs,"  she  whispered, 
catching  her  breath. 

"Why?"  I  demanded. 

"Quick!     We  must  escape  this  way." 

" Jamais  de  la  vie!"  I  stuttered.  "It's 
right  to  escape,  but  I  won't  be  caught  break- 
ing and  entering  somebody's  house." 

"But  quick!" 

"No!" 

"But  I  know  this  room,"  she  sobbed. 
"I  have  the  right." 

"You  have  what?" 

"The  right  to  enter.  Mon  Dieu!  C'est 
la  chambre  de  mon  ami,  messieurs  /" 

Nothing  is  stranger  than  truth;  nothing 
more  grotesque,  more  dramatic,  more  truly 

[S5l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

unreal.  I  can  imagine  how  this  revelation 
would  have  been  received  on  the  stage  in 
any  of  the  five  continents:  the  gestures  of 
the  outraged  husband,  the  tableau  of  the 
horrified  perceptor,  and  the  amazement  of 
the  guests.  But  clinging  to  our  precarious 
footing  on  the  roof,  we  received  it  only  as  a 
stroke  of  luck — a  means  of  escape  from  our 
awful  predicament.  We  thanked  Heaven  for 
Yvette's  lover! 

"Up  with  her!"  I  hissed  at  the  poet. 
"Stoop  down,  man,  and  I'll  lift  her  into  the 
room." 

He  leaned  obediently  against  the  bricks. 
I  grasped  the  dancer  firmly  by  the  sole  of 
her  soft  dancing  buskin  and  boosted  her 
against  the  wall,  the  poet  clumsily  bent 
lower  still,  and  she  clambered  over  him  to 
the  window  sill.  Scraping,  gasping,  strug- 
gling, she  reached  it,  slipped  her  arms  over 
the  sill,  and  rose.  There  was  a  flutter  of 
stiff  dancing  skirt,  her  twinkling,  white-clad 
legs  and  feet  slipped  over  the  ledge  and  out 
of  sight.  Then  came  a  pause.  McTeague 

[56] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

and  I  stared  at  each  other  soberly.  "Hm!" 
he  breathed  deeply.  "Hm!  Hm!" 

Her  head,  with  the  Liberty  cap  ridiculously 
awry,  peeped  over  the  window  ledge.  "It's 
all  right.  He  isn't  here.  I'll  help  you  in, 
messieurs,"  Yvette  said  calmly,  and  in  two 
minutes  more  we  stood  beside  her  in  the 
unlighted  bedroom  of  her  ami. 

"Follow,"  she  said.  "If  you  please.  Here 
is  my  hand." 

In  single  file  we  tiptoed  across  the  room 
and  reached  the  door.  I  heard  the  knob 
turn  softly;  a  rush  of  hot  air  streamed  over 
our  perspiring  faces,  we  pattered  out  to 
a  landing  from  which  descended  another 
flight  of  stairs,  and  stood  breathlessly  listen- 
ing. The  night  seemed  to  pant  with  the 
heat,  the  dull  heavy  noises  of  life  spoke 
behind  closed  doors,  and  far  away  I  heard 
the  tramp  of  a  squad  of  soldiers  off  to  relieve 
the  guard. 

"Come,"  said  Yvette  softly.  "It  would 
not  do  for  my  friend  to  find  us  here,  n'est-ce 
pas  ?  One  of  you,  messieurs,  he  might  mis- 

[571 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

take  for  a  rival!"  I  am  afraid  I  laughed  as 
she  said  this;  for  McTeague,  who  usually 
treated  me  with  great  respect,  laid  his  hot 
moist  hand  on  my  mouth.  "Hush!"  he 
said.  "You  mustn't  laugh  at  her.  You 
mustn't  approve.  These  people  don't  look 
at  these  things  as  we  do.  They're  unmor — 

A  door  slammed  in  the  darkness  below 
us,  and  the  scrape  of  heavy  boots  echoed 
from  the  stair-well!  " Mon  Dieu  !"  Yvette 
whispered.  "It  is  he!  It  must  be  he! 
Here!"  She  leaped  back  into  the  gloom, 
hustling  us  with  her,  and  crouched  in  the 
farthest  corner  of  the  hall.  McTeague  was 
first  in  the  line;  then  I;  then  the  poet;  then 
Guilbert;  then  Yvette.  The  heavy  tread 
of  the  newcomer  sounded  louder  and  louder, 
but  no  louder  than  the  anguished  beating 
of  our  hearts.  He  reached  the  top  of  the 
stair.  An  odour  of  Iambic  or  faro  scented 
the  fetid  air.  We  could  see  in  the  dark- 
ness an  immense  bulk,  and  Yvette  trembled. 
It  was  her  that  he  must  have  heard,  for  even 
while  his  hand  was  on  the  knob,  he  turned. 
[58] 


Figures  of  the  Dance 

"Hello,  old  fellow,"  he  called  jocularly. 
"What  have  you  got  there?  Let  me  see?" 

In  the  vague  semi-darkness  I  saw  Mc- 
Teague  scramble  slowly  to  his  feet.  I  thought 
he  would  surrender  at  discretion,  but  the 
sound  of  his  voice  disillusioned  and  astonished 
me.  "Go  into  that  room,  you  villain,"  he 
roared,  advancing  on  the  friendly  inebriate  and 
bawling  fit  to  wake  the  dead.  "Coin!  Coin!" 

His  voice  or  his  impressive  advance  fright- 
ened Yvette's  friend.  The  door  banged 
open;  there  was  a  short  pause;  then  it  slammed 
shut  and  I  could  hear  a  panting,  frightened 
human  mass  flung  hard  against  it  to  keep  out 
the  intruder. 

"Go  away,  you  dirty  Germans!"  bawled 
a  muffled  voice.  "Sales  Bockes!" 

McTeague  gripped  the  handle  of  the  door 
and  tried  to  turn  it,  but  Yvette — more  wise 
than  he — clutched  him  about  the  waist  and 
flung  him  with  all  her  force  toward  the  stair. 
"Hurry,  hurry,  we  must  run!"  she  sobbed. 
"Hurry,  hurry!"  And  we  charged  down 
the  dark  well. 

lS9l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

At  the  door  we  peered  cautiously  out. 
No  one  had  been  aroused.  The  hot  night 
breathed  about  us  as  softly  as  a  sleeping  child, 
ignorant,  indifferent,  and  calm.  Tragedy, 
comedy,  farce — we  had  played  them  all  un- 
wittingly, and  no  one  knew  or  cared  but  we! 

An  old  herdick  hitched  to  a  decrepit 
horse  stood  in  the  shadow  of  the  street 
corner!  We  thrust  Yvette,  Guilbert,  and 
the  poet  into  its  shelter  and  waved  them 
good-night.  " Au  revoir,  messieurs!"  the 
three  called  to  us  gaily. 

"Adieu!"  McTeague  responded.  "It  is 
not  au  revoir:  it  is  good-bye!"  Then  he 
added,  sotto  voce,  to  me,  "They  are  true 
artists — unmoral — like  marionettes — just  fig- 
ures of  the  dance,  aren't  they?  .  .  . 
Come!"  he  said,  after  a  pause.  "They  have 
forgotten  it  already,  but  we  must  go  back  to 
the  Cafe  du  Cid  and  get  the  proprietor  out 
of  this  scrape.  Right?" 

"Right,"  I  responded.  And  we  slowly 
followed  the  creaking  herdick  down  the 
narrow  street. 

[60] 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  MONT  CESAR 

RJN  fell  softly,  as  it  frequently  falls 
in  Belgium,  drenching  the  ripening 
fields  of  Brabant  and  the  ghosts  of 
ruined  towns.  By  six  o'clock  in  the  evening 
we  had  reached  Louvain.  My  motor-car 
rolled  through  the  porte  de  Bruxelles  and 
down  the  narrow,  slippery  Flemish  streets 
into  the  heart  of  the  city.  From  a  sentry 
box  marked  with  barber-pole  stripes  in  the 
German  colours — black,  white,  red;  black, 
white,  red  again — a  bearded  Landsturm  man 
leaped  out,  wearing  a  helmet  like  a  Yoho- 
ghany  miner's  cap,  a  faded  gray-green  service 
uniform,  and  high,  mud-coloured  boots. 
The  car  skidded  past  him  over  the  moist 
cobblestones.  "Halt!"  he  shouted,  waving 
his  rifle;  but  I  flaunted  my  celluloid-covered 
[61] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

pass-case  at  him  and  yelled  in  tourist  Ger- 
man, "Amerikanische  Hilfskomite,"  and  he 
nodded  and  crawled  back  into  his  shelter. 

It  was  the  first  anniversary  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Louvain. 

Before  the  majestic  Hotel  de  Ville — its  six 
slender  open  towers  riding  high  like  a  stranded 
ship  in  a  waste  of  ruins — sole  relic  of  the  old 
glories  of  Louvain's  Grand'  Place,  Pierre 
stopped  the  car  and  looked  back  at  me  in- 
quiringly. 

"I  shall  spend  the  night  at  Mont  Cesar, 
Pierre." 

"Good,  monsieur." 

"Go  to  the  Kommandantur  and  ask  the 
commandant  for  a  garage  for  the  Relief 
Commission's  car." 

"Good." 

"I  shall  walk  to  the  monastery,"  I  added 
in  response  to  his  unspoken  question.  "You 
may  go  now." 

"Pardon,  but  is  monsieur  to  assist  at  the 
ceremony  in  memory  of  the  saviour  of  Mont 
Cesar?" 

[62! 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

"What  saviour,  Pierre?" 

"Monsieur  has  not  heard — the  German 
officer  who  saved  the  monastery:  the  Prus- 
sian who  would  not  burn  the  monastery, 
although  he  was  so  ordered.  Monsieur 
has  not  heard?" 

"Nonsense,  Pierre,"  I  laughed.  "What 
foolishness  is  this?" 

"Si,  si,  si,  monsieur  !  It  is  true,"  he 
insisted  vehemently,  "every  word.  I  swear 
it.  He  would  not  burn  the  monastery,  that 
German;  and  so  to-night  and  for  one  hundred 
years  the  monks  sing  and  march  in  pro- 
cession for  him." 

"Go  find  a  garage!"  I  ordered  in  disgust. 
The  idea  of  Belgian  monks  holding  service 
for  a  German  was  absurd.  Chauffeur  tales, 
I  had  found,  while  often  interesting,  were 
not  always  true.  "Pierre  must  think  me  a 
fool  indeed  to  tell  me  such  a  stupid  false- 
hood," I  thought,  as  I  went  grumblingly  up 
the  street. 

Dusk  and  the  gray  rain  fell  together,  cover- 
ing the  gray  city  with  an  impenetrable 
[63] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

shroud.  Ghostly  walls  and  empty  balconies, 
bricks,  ashes,  gaunt  wooden  fences  to  hide 
the  worst  of  the  ruins;  a  stray  dog  which 
snapped  as  he  ran  past;  women  with  black 
shawls  over  their  bent  heads  hurrying  along 
the  street;  a  file  of  stodgy  German  Landsturm 
plodding  through  the  rain — these  things  I 
saw  as  I  walked  through  the  city  where 
Lipsius  had  taught,  the  city  which  had  been 
the  home  of  learning  and  art  and  the  seat 
of  Catholic  piety  for  more  than  five  cen- 
turies, the  city  whose  ruin  is  one  of  many 
eternal  blots  on  the  'scutcheon  of  Germany. 

I  climbed  up  past  the  tall  stately  hill 
called  Mont  Cesar — a  height  on  which  local 
legend  says  Caesar  built  a  camp  and  a  for- 
tress— where  the  dour,  unbeautiful  mon- 
astery of  Mont  Cesar  broods  over  the 
wrecked  city. 

The  pater  hospitalis,  Jan  Heynderyckx, 
greeted  me  with  grave  pleasure.  He  was 
not  old,  yet  the  beard  which  just  touched 
the  breast  of  his  Benedictine  habit  was  al- 
most white,  his  eyes  were  gray  and  tired, 
[64] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

and  his  skin,  in  the  fluttering  candlelight, 
was  like  the  vellum  of  mediaeval  manuscripts. 
I  had  an  odd  fancy  that  his  face  was  a  perfect 
transcript  of  his  life,  limned  by  the  hands  of 
life  and  death,  fear,  ecstasy,  hope,  ambition, 
love,  and  hate.  He  bowed  me  into  a  small 
reception  room  at  the  right  of  the  arched 
door  and  went  for  sherry  and  tobacco.  Far 
away,  from  the  chapel,  came  the  faint  thun- 
der of  bass  voices  chanting  a  service.  It 
echoed  and  re-echoed  through  the  hollow 
halls,  roaring  and  subsiding  like  distant 
waves.  The  monks  were  singing  litanies  for 
the  murdered  city. 

The  room  where  I  sat  was  curious;  little 
larger  than  a  closet.  On  the  four  walls 
hung  old  oil  paintings  of  fathers-superior  of 
the  Benedictine  order:  Dom  Pothier,  Dom 
Schmitt,  Dom  Egbert — sombre,  saintly  men 
whose  bones  long  since  were  dust.  But  over 
the  wooden  mantel  opposite  me  hung  a  framed 
photograph.  It  amused  and  fascinated  me 
—that  one  touch  of  modernity  in  the  bleak 
monastic  hall — and  I  stared  at  it  dreamily. 
[65] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Ah,  the  photograph,  monsieur?"  The 
monk  had  entered  quietly  and  stood  beside 
me.  He,  too,  gazed  at  the  picture,  while 
his  hands  poured  the  wine  and  set  forth 
Turkish  cigarettes.  "To  your  good  health, 
monsieur  le  Delegue.  The  photograph?" 
He  took  a  huge  pinch  of  snuff,  flourished  his 
handkerchief,  and  breathed  noisily.  "You 
may  look  at  it  if  you  wish." 

"A  thousand  thanks,  brother,"  I  answered 
indifferently,  rising  and  going  toward  the 
little  frame.  The  monk  followed  me,  catch- 
ing up  a  flickering  candle  and  holding  it 
close  to  the  glass  for  me  to  see  the  better. 

"My  God!"  I  almost  shouted  the  words 
in  my  astonishment.  "It  is  a  German 
officer!"  The  picture  before  us  was  a  cheap 
cabinet  photograph  of  a  lieutenant  of  in- 
fantry, evidently  a  Prussian,  his  crop  head 
showing  beneath  his  cap,  his  steady,  narrow 
eyes  gazing  straight  into  ours!  His  right 
cheek  was  slashed  with  Schmizzes  of  student 
duels;  his  hard  mouth  was  half  covered  with 
bristling  moustaches,  and  the  white  and  black 
[661 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

ribbon  of  the  Iron  Cross,  second  class,  peeped 
from  his  buttonhole.  "Mahn,  Ober-Leut- 
nant,"  I  read,  written  across  the  lower  half 
of  the  photograph  with  a  military  flourish, 
and  under  it  in  fine  Flemish  script  in  another 
hand,  "The  saviour  of  Mont  Cesar,  Louvain, 
August,  1914." 

"Monsieur  is  puzzled?'* 

"Puzzled?  I  am  thunder-struck!  Is  this 
Belgium,  or  is  it  Germany,  brother?" 

Father  Jan  gazed  at  me  sorrowfully.  "You 
do  not  yet  understand.  This  is  still  Belgium, 
and  God  will  punish  the  guilty.  Listen, 
monsieur,  you  understand  Latin?"  He 
pointed  down  the  corridors  where  the  bass 
voices  were  chanting  again  in  unison.  "You 
hear  what  they  are  singing?" 

"No,"  I  said. 

"Listen,  monsieur  le  Delegue,  Primo — 
anno — magni — belli — in  the  first  year  of  the 
Great  War — sub — bono — rege — Alberto — in 
the  reign  of  good  King  Albert — praefectus 
Mahnius — monasterium — montis  Caesarii — 
ab  exitio — servavit — laus  Deo  ! — Officer  Mahn 
[67! 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

saved  from  destruction  the  monastery  of 
Mont  Cesar." 

"We  had  fled  to  Malines,  monsieur,  we 
monks  of  Mont  Cesar,  and  two  days  after 
Louvain  had  been  put  to  the  torch  Dom 
Egbert  ordered  me  to  return  to  the  monastery 
and  care  for  it.  Such  lamentations,  mon- 
sieur! My  brothers  and  I  knew  I  was  going 
to  my  death,  and  my  blood  froze  even  to 
think  of  what  the  Germans  might  do  to  me; 
but  I  went,  monsieur,  I  went  guided  by  God, 
doubtless,  through  the  hordes  of  refugees 
along  the  roads,  and  the  Belgian  outposts, 
and  the  Germans,  and  so  at  dusk  I  reached 
the  porte  de  Malines  and  saw  our  sacred 
monastery  still  unharmed  by  the  fires,  un- 
touched by  the  vandals. 

"Louvain  flared  like  a  furnace.  From 
kilometres  away  I  saw  it  like  a  red  blot  on 
the  sky,  and  the  stench  of  its  burning  spread 
thoughts  so  mournful  that  one  entered  verit- 
ably as  if  into  the  house  of  death. 

"Monsieur  le  Delegue,  there  was  no  sound 
here  at  our  monastery,  so  I  knocked,  and 
[68] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

then  suddenly  some  one  had  me  by  the  throat 
with  harsh  hands  and  a  voice  grunted  in 
German,  'So,  spy!  I  have  thee?' 

"I  was  as  one  dead,  monsieur,  and  fell 
flat  on  the  stone;  but  that  one  said.  'Up, 
spy.  Ha!  Ha!  In  priest's  costume,  art 
thou,  eh?  We  shall  have  sport  with  thee — a 
spy-priest!'  For  he  had  felt  of  my  cassock 
in  the  darkness  and  he  believed,  as  all  the 
Germans  believe,  that  Belgian  officers  wore 
the  garb  of  priests,  that  they  spied  disguised 
as  priests,  that  they  even  directed  rifle-fire 
and  artillery-fire  gowned  as  priests — in  a  wordj 
they  believed  every  lie  which  their  generals 
could  invent  of  us.  And  so  my  captor 
dragged  me  through  the  doorway  and  down 
the  black  corridor,  where  all  smelled  of  naphtha 
as  if  one  were  ready  to  kindle  a  great  fire. 

"He  stopped;  he  beat  softly  on  a  door;  a 
voice  called  'Herein1:  the  door  opened,  and 
I  was  flung  into  the  very  cell  where  we  sit, 
monsieur. 

"There  sat  a  man  at  the  table  where  you 
sit,  monsieur  le  Delegue — the  man  whose 
[69] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

photograph  you  see — a  man  young,  and  hard, 
and  cruel,  in  the  costume  of  a  German  officer. 
He  sat  alone  before  his  untasted  supper 
dishes.  At  either  end  of  the  table  a  candle 
dripped  and  sputtered.  The  man's  elbows 
were  propped  against  the  edge  of  the  table, 
and  his  head  hung  forward  between  the  can- 
dles, as  if  he  were  ill  or  broken  with  anxiety. 

"He  had  been  reading,  monsieur,  and  he 
thrust  a  paper  into  the  breast  of  his  uniform 
as  we  entered — the  sentry  and  I.  His  hand 
trembled,  and  his  voice  trembled,  too,  but 
he  roared  out,  'Speak,  one  of  you/ 

"'A  spy,  Herr  Leutnant,'  grunted  the 
soldier  behind  me.  *  He  was  prowling 
round  the  door.' 

"'So?' 
"He  says  he  is  a  monk  of  this  monastery.' 

"'So?' 

"He  says  he  ran  away  before  we  burned 
Louvain.' 

"'So?' 

"He  is  a  damned  spy — a  damned  franc- 
tireur.  Else  why  did  he  come  back?' 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

"I  was  speechless,  monsieur.  My  throat 
ached  horribly,  for  I  was  half  throttled;  my 
senses  ebbed  and  flowed  like  water;  I  could 
say  nothing. 

"'You  understand  German,  spy?'  the 
Lieutenant  spat  at  me.  'You  understand 
German  bullets,  nicht?  You  understand 
Leffe,  Latour,  Gelrode,  Bovenloo?'  He 
named  over  some  of  the  towns  where  our 
brother-priests  had  been  done  to  death. 

"I  spoke.  I  said,  'I  am  Brother  Jan,  of 
this  monastery.* 

"'You  are  a  spy!' 

"I   am  no  spy!     I   am   Brother  Jan  of 
Mont  Cesar!' 

"His  eyes  seemed  to  probe  me  in  the  candle- 
light. 'Come  here!'  he  ordered. 

"I  advanced  a  step. 

"'Nearer.' 

"I  stood  directly  opposite. 

'You  see  this  revolver?'  He  slipped  a 
metal  thing  from  its  holster  and  placed  it 
beside  his  plate.  'I  will  shoot  you  if  you 
move  so  much  as  a  millimetre!  Now  we 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

shall  see  who  you  are.'  He  stared  past  me 
at  the  sentry.  *  Fetch  the  caretaker!'  he 
ordered. 

"Then,  monsieur,  when  we  were  alone 
together,  the  German  became  strangely 
quiet.  He  became  as  one  who  is  puzzled 
and  who  wishes  to  believe  something  which 
he  scarcely  dares  believe.  'Who  are  you?' 
he  asked,  almost  gently. 

"'I  am  a  Benedictine — Brother  Jan  Heyn- 
deryckx.' 

"'You  are  of  this  monastery?' 

"'I  am  of  this  monastery.' 

"'You  know  the  monastery?' 

"As  I  know  my  hand.' 
"Why  are  you  here?' 
"My    father-superior    ordered    me    back 
from  M alines  to  stay  in  the  monastery— 
to  care  for  it.' 

"The  German  leaned  forward.  He  took 
up  the  revolver  and  tapped  it  against  the 
nearer  candlestick.  'If  you  lie,  you  die,' 
he  said  roughly,  yet  it  seemed  to  me,  mon- 
sieur, as  if  he  wished  to  believe  me,  as  if  he 

[72] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

desired  something  of  me,  as  if  a  new  thought 
had  risen  in  his  mind,  or  a  new  and  better 
impulse  in  his  soul,  and  as  if  he  had  resolved 
on  a  higher  course.  I  have  been  a  parish 
priest,  monsieur;  I  needs  must  know  the  hu- 
man heart. 

"The  door  opened  and  the  sentry  entered, 
pushing  before  him  old  Piet,  the  man-of- 
all-work  in  the  monastery  cellars — old  Piet 
whom  we  had  forgotten  and  left  behind  when 
we  fled  to  Malines.  He  was  trembling  like 
an  aspen  leaf  and  he  bent  almost  to  the  floor. 

"Stick  him  with  the  bayonet  if  he  doesn't 
stand  up,'  the  Lieutenant  roared.  'Do  you 
know  this  person?'  He  pointed  at  me. 

"Piet  did  not  look  up. 

"'Speak  out!'  thundered  the  officer.  'Do 
you  know  him  ? ' 

"'I  cannot  understand/ 

" Hein  ?     hein  ?     You  know  him?' 

"Piet  stole  a  glance  at  me.  'Nay,'  he 
whispered. 

"The  Lieutenant  rose  from  his  chair. 
His  face  became  the  face  of  a  madman.  He 

[731 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

whipped  the  revolver  from  the  table  and 
pointed  it  wildly.  His  hand  shook,  his  eyes 
rolled,  so  that  even  the  sentry  was  terrified 
and  tried  to  hide  behind  old  Piet  and  me. 
'Bitte  !  Bitte  !'  he  ejaculated,  'Bitte,  Herr 
Leutnant!'  But  suddenly  my  courage  came, 
and  I  spoke  swiftly  in  the  familiar  Flemish. 

"'Don't  you  know  me,  Piet?'  I  asked. 
'  I  am  Brother  Jan.  Surely  you  know  me ! ' 

"'You,  mynheer  Jan,  you?  Of  course,  of 
course  I  know  you.  I  was  afraid,'  the  old 
man  babbled.  'I  was  afraid  of  him — the 
mad  devil  in  the  chair.  He  is  going  to  burn 
the  monastery.  He  has  put  naphtha  in  all 
the  rooms.  He  is  going  to  burn  Mont 
Cesar!' 

"The  Lieutenant  smiled  like  one  who  is 
pleased,  and  slid  down  again  into  his  chair. 
'What  does  he  say?'  he  asked. 

"'That  you  are  going  to  burn  Mont 
Cesar/ 

"Good,  good!  You  are  an  honest  man, 
Herr  monk.  I  asked  you  to  see  if  you 
would  lie  to  me.  I  understand  Flemish. 

[74] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

Take  the  old  man  away,'  he  ordered,  turning 
again  to  the  sentry,  'then  come  here.' 

"Then,  monsieur,  there  happened  the 
strangest  thing  of  all.  The  door  closed. 
We  stared  into  each  other's  faces,  we  were 
like  gamblers  with  all  at  stake,  haggard, 
eager,  watchful — a  priest  against  a  soldier. 

"The  German  leaned  forward.  'Herr 
monk,'  he  said  in  a  voice  which  was  like  a 
whisper,  'I  am  not  going  to  burn  your  mon- 
astery. You  see  before  you  the  saviour  of 
Mont  Cesar!' 

"Monsieur,  for  one  breathless  moment  I 
stood  like  a  stone.  I  could  not  believe  my 
ears.  The  man  had  gone  mad,  or  else  I 
was  myself  mad. 

'You  see  before  you  the  saviour  of  Mont 
Cesar,'  he  repeated  softly. 

"I  screamed  at  him.  I  thought  a  thousand 
horrible  things  in  a  moment,  men  pierced 
on  stakes,  boiled  in  oil,  crucified.  I  screamed, 
'Kill  me!  Kill  me  quickly,  but  do  not 
murder  me  with  words.  I  will  not  ..talk 
with  a  madman!' 

[75] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"'Herr  monk/  he  answered,  'I  am  not 
mad.  See!'  He  thrust  his  hand  into  the 
bosom  of  his  uniform  and  pulled  out  a  crum- 
pled paper,  'See!  Here  is  von  ManteufFel's 
order;  it  is  dated  August  26th.  It  directs  me 
to  burn  Mont  Cesar.  The  paper  shall  be 
yours,  and  the  monastery  is  saved!' 

"'You  lie!'  I  screamed  again.  'What  is 
this  new  trick  of  a  scrap  of  paper?' 

"It  is  von  ManteufFel's  order  for  me  to 
burn  Mont  Cesar.' 

"'Ha!'  I  laughed  at  him.  'A  Germans 
ordered  to  burn  a  monastery  and  he  dis- 
obeys! That  is  indeed  droll!  A  German 
who  has  murdered  scores  in  Belgium,  who 
has  burned  and  pillaged  and  outraged,  now 
saves  a  monastery!  Ha,  ha!  That  is  likely, 
is  it  not?' 

"I  have  saved  Mont  Cesar,'  he  repeated 
steadily.  'Here  is  the  order.'  He  thrust 
the  crumpled  paper  into  my  hand. 

"I  stared  at  it.  Monsieur,  though  the 
thing  is  incredible,  it  is  true.  The  paper 
was  an  order  from  Major  von  Manteuffel 
[76] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

directing  Ober-Leutnant  Mahn  to  burn  Mont 
Cesar!  The  thing  was  not  a  forgery.  It  is 
incredible,  but  it  is  true.  I  held  in  my  hand 
the  thing  which  could  destroy  Mont  Cesar! 

"Give  it  to  me,'  he  said.      I    gave    it. 

'It  shall  be  yours,  if 

"'If ' 

"If  you  do  not  forget  him  who  saved 
Mont  Cesar.' 

"Ha!'  I  laughed  at  him  again.  'You  dis- 
obey an  order — you  who  are  a  lieutenant 
of  infantry — but  does  that  save  Mont  Cesar? 
Yours  is  a  relentless,  cruel  race.  You  have 
saved  our  monastery  for  a  day,  maybe:  von 
Manteuffel  will  burn  it  to-morrow!' 

"This,  monsieur,  I  said  because  I  doubted 
God's  providence,  because  I  feared  men 
more  than  God! 

"Manteuffel  will  not  burn  it  to-morrow 
or  ever,  Herr  monk,'  he  replied.  'I  have 
learned  that  Berlin  is  angry  at  the  scandal 
of  Louvain,  and  has  forbidden  more  burnings. 
Two  days  have  gone  by.  Your  monastery  is 
saved.  I  have  saved  Mont  Cesar.' 

[77l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"A  third  time  the  sentry  entered,  and  a 
third  time  the  officer's  face  grew  stern  and 
his  voice  rose  angrily:  'Take  this  monk 
through  the  monastery;  then  bring  him  here. 
Be  quick.  There  is  no  time  to  lose,'  he  said. 
And  I  followed  the  sentry  out  into  the  black 
corridor. 

"He  secured  a  lantern  and  I  followed  him 
down  the  long  halls.  In  each  monastery 
cell,  in  the  refectory,  in  the  kitchen,  in  the 
library,  everything  had  been  piled  in  a  heap, 
soaked  in  naphtha,  and  prepared  for  burning. 
Everything  was  ready,  monsieur,  and  had 
been  ready  for  two  days.  This  lieutenant 
alone  had  defeated  the  machinations  of 
that  man-devil — that  Manteuffel  who  com- 
manded in  Louvain.  Why?  I  do  not  know, 
except  that  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  Mont 
Cesar  should  be  preserved,  and  the  good  God, 
monsieur,  uses  even  the  vilest  of  men  to 
work  His  will.  The  Good  God  uses  even 
Germans — 

"Again  T  stood  in  the  little  cell  before  the 
saviour  of  Mont  Cesar.  'Herr  OffizierJ  I 
[78] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

said,  'Give  me  the  order,  and  by  the  good  God 
whose  instrument  you  are — 

'This  is  not  God's  work:  it  is  the  devil's!' 
he  exclaimed  bitterly. 

('What  is  the  devil's  work — that  you 
have  saved  the  monastery?  No.  That  is 
of  God/ 

"  'God  or  the  devil,  I  am  disgraced.' 

"By  God's  will  you  are  saved.' 
"'Saved?' 

"God  will  not  forget/ 

"God  has  forgotten  already.  I  shall 
be  shot  for  this.  I  have  disobeyed  orders/ 

"Monsieur,  it  was  the  mood  of  the  con- 
fessional, was  it  not?  And  this  man  was 
indeed  an  instrument  of  God.  Do  you 
blame  me  that  I  heard  his  confession,  and 
that  I  gave  him  comfort — he,  an  alien,  an 
enemy,  a  Prussian,  who  had  saved  Mont 
Cesar  and  did  not  know  why  he  had  saved 
it,  except  that  God  had  led  him?  He  knew 
that  von  ManteufFel  had  learned  of  his 
disobedience;  he  knew  that  death  and  dis- 
grace were  before  him;  yet  knowing  these 

[791 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

things  he  had   persisted,    and   Mont   Cesar 
was  saved. 

"Monsieur,  God's  will  is  strange,  and  the 
seed  that  God  plants  bears  strange  fruit.  All 
men  long  for  immortality;  all  men  long  for 
something  which  will  bear  their  name  to 
posterity,  and  he  who  had  saved  Mont  Cesar 
— do  you  blame  him  if  he  longed  to  be  held 
in  remembrance  by  the  monks  of  our  mon- 
astery? I  promised  to  place  his  photograph 
here  where  you  see  it.  I  promised  to  write 
on  it  'The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar' — as  you 
see.  I  swore  by  the  cross  I  wear  that  all 
this  should  be  done,  an,d  yet — it  was  God's 
will,  monsieur — the  German  was  not  satisfied. 
I  could  see  that  his  mind  was  tormented 
still. 

"Promise  me  one  thing  more,  Herr  monk,' 
he  begged. 

"'What  is  it?' I  asked. 
"Promise  me  just  one  thing  more/ 
"Very  well.     I  promise,  my  son/  I  said. 
You  see,  monsieur,  I  called  him  'son/  for  he 
was  a  true  son  of  the  Church   although   a 
[80] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

Prussian,  and  he  had  obeyed  the  voice  of 
the  good  God  although  he  was  my  en- 
emy. 

"Your  processions  on  holy  days,  you  monks 
sing  in  them?' 

"  'We  sing,  my  son.' 

'"Promise  me  that  your  monks  will  re- 
member me.' 

"I  have  promised  you  that.' 

"Promise  me  that  you  will  sing  in  your 
processions — that  you  will  sing  of  the  saving 
of  Mont  Cesar.' 

"I  promised  him,  monsieur. 

"Promise  that  you  will  sing  of  me,  of 
Lieutenant  Mahn,  who  saved  your  monastery; 
that  you  will  sing  of  me  for  one  hundred 
years!' 

"Herr,  I  cannot  promise  that!'  I  ex- 
claimed. 

'"You  have  promised.  Fulfil  what  you 
have  promised.' 

'"I  cannot.' 

"His  face  became  like  the  face  of  one 
dead.  'You  have  promised,'  he  muttered. 
[81] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

'Sing  only  that  I   saved   your  monastery; 
only  that.' 

"Place  yourself  in  that  situation,  monsieur! 
Was  it  so  great  a  thing  he  asked  ?  God  made 
us  to  long  for  immortality;  was  it  after  all 
so  great  a  thing  the  German  asked  of  me  ? 

"Maybe  you  think  he  bargained  with  me, 
maybe  to  you  it  seems  a  high  price  to  pay 
even  to  him  who  had  saved  Mont  Cesar — 
the  price  of  a  procession  once  a  year  for 
one  hundred  years  and  a  chant  of  remem- 
brance. But  no,  monsieur,  it  was  not  ex- 
cessive, that  price.  It  was  God  who  de- 
manded it — not  he.  It  was  God  who  willed 
that  he  should  save  Mont  Cesar,  that  he 
should  disobey,  that  he  should  be  led  out 
in  disgrace  to  die,  and  that  his  memory 
should  be  held  accurst  by  all  but  his  enemies 
— by  all  save  the  monks  of  Mont  Cesar. 
Was  it,  then,  so  great  a  thing  he  asked?  I 
had  vowed:  I  must  keep  my  vow.  I  bent 
my  head  in  prayer,  and  in  an  instant  I  was 
answered.  Monsieur,  I  promised!  I  would 
grant  that  strange  wish ! 
[82] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

'Tell  me,  Herr  monk,  what  will  you 
sing?'  he  begged.  'Tell  me  in  Latin,  just 
as  you  will  sing  it/ 

"And  I,  slowly  seeking  for  the  words,  be- 
gan to  speak  those  which  you  have  heard 
to-night  in  the  halls  of  Mont  Cesar:  * Primo 
anno  magni  belli,  sub  bono  rege  Alberto, 

praefectus  Mahnius ' 

'That  means  Lieutenant  Mahn?'  he 
asked  with  eagerness. 

'Yes.  Praefectus  Mahnius  monasterium 
montis  Caesarii  ab  exitio  servavit — laus  Deo  ! ' 

"Sing  it  for  me,'  he  entreated  when  I 
was  done.  And  I  slowly  chanted  the  words. 
'Teach  it  to  me/ 

"Slowly,  very  slowly  I  repeated  the  words 
again  and  again  and  again;  and  '  .  .  .  ab 
exitio  servavit,  laus  Deo  ! '  he  recited  after  me. 

"How  shall  I  tell  you  the  end,  monsieur? 
There  were  loud  footfalls  in  the  corridor  and 
the  door  resounded  to  heavy  blows! 

'"They  have  come  for  me,  Herr  monk/ 
the  officer  whispered.     *  Good-bye.     I  am  a 
dead  man.     Primo  anno  magni  belli — those 
[83! 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

are  the  words?  .  .  .  Herein!'  he  called 
confidently. 

"Then  in  they  came — a  non-commissioned 
officer  and  four  privates  who  filed  through 
the  doorway,  saluted,  and  stood  at  atten- 
tion. 'I  am  named  Sergeant  Schneider — 
Herr  Leutnant  Mahn?'  the  leader  asked. 

"'Yes/  responded  the  lieutenant  quietly. 
"My  warrant,'  said  the  sergeant,  offering 
a  paper.  'You  are  under  arrest.  Come.' 

"The  lieutenant  rose  slowly  from  his 
chair.  He  thrust  his  pistol  into  its  holster. 
His  eyes  were  bright  and  very  calm.  For 
an  instant  I  admired  him  although  he  was 
my  enemy;  he  was  so  calm,  so  sure.  God 
was  with  him,  I  know.  'Ab  exitio  servavit, 
nichty  Herr  monk?'  he  asked. 

"He  picked  up  from  the  table  the  written 
order  of  von  ManteufFel.  'Your  passport 
and  carte  d'identite,'  he  continued  slowly, 
as  if  we  had  been  speaking  of  them.  'You 
may  stay  in  charge  of  the  monastery  with 
Piet.  All  is  in  order.  .  .  .  Your  photo- 
graph, Herr.'  He  handed  me  his  own  photo- 
[84] 


The  Saviour  of  Mont  Cesar 

graph — the  photograph  you  see  on  the  wall, 
monsieur/  Your  Ausweiss !'  He  gave  me 
the  written  order  from  von  Manteuffel  di- 
recting that  the  monastery  be  burned.  Then 
he  turned  quietly  to  the  file  of  soldiers  and 
walked  out  before  them.  .  .  . 

"It  is  not  the  face  of  a  bad  man,  that  face 
in  the  photograph,  monsieur,"  said  Brother 
Jan,  as  I  stared  again  into  the  steady,  narrow 
eyes  of  the  picture  of  Lieutenant  Mahn. 
"God  asks  no  questions  of  men  when  He 
would  use  them.  Our  monastery  is  saved 
through  the  hand  of  a  stranger  and  an  enemy. 
It  is  the  work  of  God,  laus  Deo  !  Let  us  praise 
God,  monsieur." 


[85] 


VI 

GHOSTS 

BELGIAN  peasants  say  that  on  the 
Eve  of  All  Souls  unquiet  spirits  are 
loosed  from  their  graves  for  an  hour 
after  sunset.  Those  who  died  by  violence, 
or  those  who  died  unshriven,  rise  from  the 
dark  and  speak  to  passersby;  they  rise  with 
the  load  of  their  sins  upon  them,  with  the 
hatred,  or  fear,  or  agony,  or  longing  which 
they  felt  while  dying,  still  in  their  tortured 
hearts,  and  they  beg  the  passersby  to  take 
vengeance  on  their  enemies,  or  to  give  them 
news  of  those  they  loved  or  hated.  And 
after  a  brief  hour  they  sink  back  again  into 
the  dust. 

I  believe  the  story,  for  I  have  met  those 
sad  spirits.     It  was  on  a  foggy  evening  in 
October — All  Souls'  Eve — on  the  road  from 
[86] 


Ghosts 

Brussels  to  Antwerp,  where  Belgians  and 
Britons  a  year  before  faced  the  German 
hordes  in  weeks  of  bitter  fighting.  We  were 
in  a  terrible  hurry.  Pierre,  the  chauffeur, 
was  driving  the  motor-car;  I  was  seated  be- 
side him.  The  headlights  blurred  like  drowned 
eyes,  and  the  open  windshield  dripped  with 
wet.  If  we  met  a  belated  cart,  or  if  we  mis- 
judged distances  on  that  winding  road,  we 
would  never  reach  our  destination  alive! 
But  we  were  in  a  hurry,  for  it  was  All  Souls' 
Eve — the  night  of  the  dead. 

Drowned  trees  writhed  in  the  blurred 
light,  culverts  leaped  out  of  the  yellow  flood 
like  fountains,  and  dead  walls  in  the  burned 
and  ravished  villages  seemed  like  rows  of 
Roman  tombs.  We  flew  through  the  mur- 
dered town  of  Eppeghem,  down  vacant 
alleys  lined  with  gaunt,  disembowelled  dwell- 
ings, beneath  the  shell  of  a  church,  beside 
stark  walls  lit  for  a  breathless  instant  by 
the  headlight  of  the  motor  then  blotted 
into  chaos.  It  was  eerie  and  terrifying.  A 
peculiar  odour  of  decay,  the  odour  of  sour 
[87] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

soil  in  early  spring  when  the  grip  of  the  ice 
is  relaxed  and  the  buried  abominations  of 
winter  steal  up  into  the  sun,  rose  from  the 
town  and  pursued  us — a  smell  like  rotten 
fungi  in  old  crypts.  Sounds  like  the  flap- 
ping of  garments  on  a  clothesline  stole 
through  the  steady  bass  roar  of  the  motor, 
and  to  my  heavy  eyes,  tortured  with  staring 
into  the  yellow  blur  ahead,  a  vague  shape 
seemed  to  float  beside  the  car,  a  shape 
which  was  strangely  human;  erect,  but  rigid, 
flying  along  like  a  dry  leaf  upright  in  a 
gale. 

I  could  see  it  only  with  the  tail  of  my  eye. 
It  disappeared  when  I  turned  my  head.  It 
was  clearest  when  I  rolled  my  eyes  high  and 
looked  through  the  lower  part  of  the  retina 
— a  sort  of  second-sight,  I  suppose.  The 
thing  puzzled,  angered,  then  frightened  me. 
"Faster!  Vite  !  rite!"  I  yelled,  suddenly 
grasping  Pierre  by  the  arm.  The  shadowy 
thing  danced  into  the  edges  of  the  blur  of 
light  directly  ahead.  "Look  out,  Pierre!" 
The  emergency  brake  came  on  with  a  grind 
[881 


Ghosts 

and  jolt,  and  the  lights  flared  with  the  pulse 
of  the  engine.  "It's  nothing,"  I  protested, 
half  ashamed  of  myself,  for  evidently  Pierre 
saw  nothing.  "Encore  plus  vite." 

We  seemed  to  have  lost  the  shadow-thing, 
until  suddenly  I  discovered  that  there  were 
others  with  it,  swinging  rigid  through  the 
fog  like  trees  uprooted  in  a  cyclone.  My 
eyes  were  smarting  with  cold  tears:  it  was 
like  swimming  with  one's  eyes  open  in  a 
stiff  current.  And  all  the  time  I  watched 
the  shadow-shapes  gathering  closer.  Faintly 
luminous  pale  yellow  blots  seemed  to  grow 
in  the  dingy  black  of  the  racing  forms.  They 
were  phosphorescent,  as  I  think  of  them  now. 
Something  brushed  my  hair.  A  clicking 
sound  like  castanets  came  from  the  empty 
tonneau  behind  me,  and  then  a  whist- 
ling, like  the  speech  of  a  man  with  no 
palate. 

"  Sssss — Feld — Feld — Feldwebel  war  ich,  aus 
Bayern — seeks — sechsundzwanzigsten — infan- 
terie  Regiment" 

I  turned  my  head  with  an  involuntary 
[89! 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

sob.  There  was  absolutely  nothing  in  the 
car.  Pierre  put  on  brakes  violently. 

"Do  you  see  anything?"  I  demanded. 

"Nothing,  monsieur." 

"Do  you  hear  or  smell  anything?" 

We  listened  and  sniffed.  "Nothing,  mon- 
sieur," Pierre  said,  quivering  and  crossing 
himself.  The  noise  of  the  motor  died,  and 
we  sat  motionless  in  gruesome  darkness 
listening  to  the  hollow  dripping  of  fog- 
water  on  the  fallen  leaves  in  the  roadway. 
We  were  swallowed,  lost  in  mist,  with  only 
a  square  yard  of  paved  road  visible  before 
us.  "Go  on,  Pierre,"  I  said  softly. 

Then  gradually  I  saw  the  ghosts  more 
plainly.  A  woman,  bent  like  an  old  hinge, 
flung  along  beside  the  flying  motor-car,  and  a 
naked,  frightened  child  ran  fearfully  before 
her.  "Ask  him,  Grutje,  ask  him  about 
home !  "a  thin  child-voice  sobbed.  A  younger 
woman  whose  head  had  been  hacked  from 
her  shoulders  floated  along  with  them,  fond- 
ling the  severed  member  and  wailing,  "  De 
Deutschers — the  Germans!"  A  group  of 
[90] 


Ghosts 

mangled  bodies  of  Belgian  artillerymen  hung 
like  a  swarm  of  bees  together,  mouthing 
curses  as  they  flew,  and  a  gigantic  peasant, 
with  clotted  beard  and  arms  stretched  rigid 
in  the  form  of  a  cross,  stared  with  a  face 
stabbed  through  and  through  like  honey-comb. 

"  Feldwebel  Stoner.  Konig,  Kaiser,  Vater- 
land,  sie  leben  hoch  /"  whispered  a  voice. 

The  swarming  spirits  grew  till  they  dark- 
ened the  mist.  We  flew  through  the 
empty  corridors  of  Malines,  and  on  to 
Waelhem — first  of  the  Antwerp  forts  to  fall 
—up  the  ridge  to  Waerloos  and  Contich, 
toward  Oude  God  and  the  inner  forts.  Still 
the  swarms  grew,  crowding  closer  and  closer. 
The  eyes  of  the  dead  peered  like  cats'  eyes 
in  the  yellow  dark,  and  my  soul  chilled  to 
ice.  The  odour  of  dead  clay  was  so  strong 
I  nearly  fainted,  and  bony  fingers  seemed 
to  press  against  my  back  and  shoulders  as  if 
heavy  wires  were  freezing  into  the  flesh. 
"Light  the  dash-light,  for  God's  sake,  Pierre!" 
I  cried,  hoping  the  new  electric  blur  would 
banish  the  phantoms,  but  their  sulphurous 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

eyes    glowed    only   the   more   in   its   feeble 
ray. 

And  the  hissing,  clicking,  and  rattling 
grew.  "  Feldwebel  Stoner,  aus  Bayern,  tot, 
Eppeghem,  September  dreizehn  .  .  .  Konig, 
Kaiser,  und  Vaterland — hoch  !  "  a  voice  shrilled ; 
" De  Deutschers  !  de  Deutschers  !  "sobbed  an 
echo  after  it.  And  then,  with  a  sudden 
access  of  horror,  I  remembered  the  saying 
of  the  peasants;  I  knew  what  had  wakened 
those  unquiet  spirits;  knew  that  they  wished 
to  question  me;  knew  that  I  must  answer 
their  questions  in  the  brief  hour  of  their  re- 
lease; all  of  them  I  must  answer! 

.     .     .     leben    hoch  /"    screamed    the 
German  voice.     "Are  we  in  Paris?" 

"No!"  I  shouted. 

.     .     .     suis  Franq ai s.     Five  la  France! 
.     .     .     Have  we  reached  the  Rhine?" 

"No!" 

.     .     .     Beige.     Is  Belgium  free  ? " 

"No!" 

.  .  .  honour,  the  honour  of  my 
country,  honour — honour?" 

[92] 


Ghosts 

"No!" 

Sozialdemokrat — for  world- 
peace  I  fought,  that  the  world  might  have 
peace.  Is  there  peace?" 

"No!" 

.     .     .     cure  of  Weerloo,  dead  for  my 
church  and  my  flock.     Are  we  victorious?" 

"No!" 

"Ask,  Grutje,  ask!"  trilled  a  child's  voice, 
and  a  sad  shriek  answered  it:  "Home — the 
little  farm  on  the  road  to  Elewyt  beside 
Kasteel  Weerde — is  it  safe?" 

I  knew  that  farm,  a  blackened  ruin  like  the 
castle  beside  it,  with  two  lath  crosses  lean- 
ing crazily  over  sunken  graves  in  the  door- 
yard.  "No!" 

"No,  no,  no!"  The  horrid  refrain  beat 
them  back.  By  ones  and  tens  and  hundreds 
they  asked  and  were  denied.  They  had 
died  as  most  men  live,  hoping  to-morrow 
would  bring  bliss  which  yesterday  with- 
held. They  had  died,  as  most  men 
live,  for  dreams.  In  all  the  world  there 
was  no  consolation  for  them,  no  word 

[93] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

of  honest  hope  or  recompense.  In  all  the 
world  there  was  nothing  for  them  but  a 
shallow  grave  and  a  little  wooden  cross. 

"I  came  from  Devon  to  Antwerp,  sir, 
with  the  Marines.  Have  we  whipped  the 
Huns?" 

"No!" 

A  woman's  passionate  voice  screamed  out: 
"They  murdered  my  child,  they  murdered 
my  man,  they  murdered  me.  Vengeance! 
Vengeance !  Vengeance ! " 

"No!  ...  No!  ...  No!  ..  ." 
And  I  fell  forward  in  the  car  senseless. 

When  I  awoke  the  fog  had  almost  disap- 
peared, Pierre  was  chafing  my  cold  hands, 
and  the  shadow-shapes  had  gone.  They  had 
sunken  again  into  their  hollow  graves,  un- 
satisfied, unconsoled.  We  rode  swiftly  on 
toward  Antwerp.  A  clean  breeze  stole  up 
from  the  west,  purifying  the  stricken  fields 
and  their  sad  memories.  It  tore  the  last 
remnants  of  gray  veil  from  the  sky.  And 
as  we  turned  into  the  black,  silent  city 

[94] 


Ghosts 

streets,  I  leaned  my  head  far  back  and 
stared  up  into  the  night  with  a  sudden  sense 
of  relief  and  even  of  comfort.  The  sick 
little  planet  Earth  fell  away  from  me,  far, 
far,  infinitely  far,  and  about  me  was  un- 
vexed  emptiness  and  the  tremendous  stars. 


[951 


VII 

THE  DESERTER 

IT  WAS  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  A 
riotous  sunrise  deluged  the  Campine  as  I 
slipped  into  my  clothes  and  ran  down 
the  narrow,  twisting  tower-stair  to  keep  a 
secret  tryst  with  the  Baas,  or  overseer. 
Little  slits  in  the  tower  wall,  cut  for  mediaeval 
archers,  let  in  the  arrows  of  the  sun;  and  as  I 
ran  through  the  gloomy  armoury  and  the  high- 
roofed  Flemish  dining  hall — stripped  of  their 
treasure  of  old  pikes,  swords,  crossbows,  and 
blunderbusses  by  the  diligent  Germans — out 
to  the  causeway,  and  over  the  creaking  draw- 
bridge on  my  way  to  the  stables  and  the  dis- 
mantled brewery,  I  imagined  myself  an 
escaped  prisoner  from  the  donjons  of  Cha- 
teau Drie  Toren.  In  truth,  I  was  running 
away  from  Baron  van  Steen's  week-end 
[961 


The  Deserter 

house-party  for  a  breath  of  rustic  air  while 
the  others  slept. 

The  stables,  tool  sheds,  hostlers'  barracks, 
bake-oven,  and  brewery  were  thatch  roofed 
and  walled  with  brick,  toned  to  a  claret- 
red,  pierced  with  small  windows  and  heavy 
oaken  doors.  The  doors  were  banded  with 
the  baronial  colours — blue  stripes  alternating 
with  yellow,  like  stripes  on  a  barber  pole 
— and  in  the  centre  of  the  hollow  square  of 
farm  buildings  fumed  a  mammoth  brown 
manure  pile.  A  smell  of  fresh-cut  hay  and 
the  warm  smell  of  animals  clung  about  the 
stables,  and  I  heard  the  watch-dog  rattle  his 
chain  and  sniff  at  the  door  as  I  passed. 

I  found  the  Baas  standing  before  his  door, 
his  face  wrinkled  with  pleasure,  his  cap  in 
his  hand.  Behind  him  his  wife  peered  out 
at  us,  wiping  her  fat  hands  on  her  skirts, 
and  two  half-grown  children  stared  from  the 
nearest  window.  The  Baas  and  his  wife 
were  the  parents  of  sixteen  children! 

"Good  day,  mynheer!"  every  one  shouted 
in  chorus. 

[971 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Good  day,  madame;  good  day,  Baas." 
(I  used  the  Flemish  title  for  overseer — the 
word  from  which  has  come  our  much-abused 
word  "Boss.")  "I'm  a  deserter  this  morn- 
ing: the  rest  of  the  Baron's  party  sleeps." 

"Ah,  so,"  laughed  the  wife.  "Mynheer 
is  like  the  German  soldiers  who  desert  by 
dozens  nowadays.  And  would  your  Honour 
hide  in  the  forest  like  them — like  the  Ger- 
mans?" 

"To  be  sure.  The  Baas  is  to  show  me  the 
deepest  coverts,  where  mynheer  the  Baron 
will  never  find  me  more." 

We  laughed  and  passed  on.  A  girl  with  a 
neckyoke  and  full  milk  pails  came  by  from 
the  dairy;  nodding  faces  appeared  at  the 
windows  of  the  farm  buildings  as  we  walked 
toward  the  woods;  bees  sped  up  the  air  from 
conical  straw  hives  close  to  our  path;  and  in 
a  few  minutes  we  were  threading  our  way 
through  a  nursery  of  young  pines,  tilled 
like  corn  rows  in  Kansas,  and  all  of  equal 
age. 

"Monsieur,  there  is  a  soul  in  trees,"  said 
[98] 


The  Deserter 

the  Baas,  affectionately  patting  an  ancient 
linden  on  the  border  of  the  old  forest.  The 
Baas  was  a  man  from  the  Province  of  Liege, 
and  he  preferred  to  speak  French  with  me 
rather  than  Flemish.  He  had,  too,  a  Walloon 
lightness  of  wit  which  went  sometimes  in- 
congruously with  his  heavy  frame,  as  when 
he  said  to  me  once  when  we  were  debating 
the  joys  of  youth  versus  age,  "To  be  old  has 
its  advantages,  monsieur.  One  can  then  be 
virtuous,  and  it  is  not  hard!" 

"There  is  a  soul  in  trees,"  he  repeated. 
"All  together  the  trees  have  a  soul.  A  forest 
is  one  spirit.  These  trees  are  old  men  and 
old  women,  very  patient  and  kindly  and 
sluggish  of  blood.  They  nod  their  heads  in 
the  wind  like  peasants  over  a  stove.  And 
they  talk.  Sometimes  I  think  that  I  can 
understand  their  talk — very  wise  and  patient 
and  slow.  Men  hurry  apart,  monsieur,  but 
the  trees  remain  together  like  old  married 
people  and  watch  their  children  grow  up 
around  them. 

"Here" — we    had    turned    down    a   path 

l99l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

and  were  in  the  fringes  of  another  forest  of 
small  pines — "here  the  Germans  have  taken 
trees  for  their  fortifications,  slashed  and 
cut,  and  those  trees  that  are  left  are  like 
wounded  soldiers:  they  have  arms  too  long 
or  too  short,  heads  smashed,  feet  uprooted, 
and  yet  they  wish  to  live,  because  they  are 
one  spirit/' 

"What  is  this?"  I  demanded  abruptly,  for 
at  my  feet  yawned  a  little  pit,  with  lumpy 
clay  still  fresh  about  it  and  a  fallen  cross 
lying  half  hidden  in  the  weeds. 

"Ho,  that?  It  is  the  grave  of  a  German," 
said  the  Baas  heartily.  He  spat  into  the 
raw  pit.  "The  German  has  been  taken 
away,  but  the  children  of  Drie  Toren  are 
still  afraid.  They  will  not  come  by  this 
path  on  account  of  the  dead  Deutscher" 

His  foot  crushed  the  rude  cross  as  he 
talked,  and  we  walked  on.  But  I  was  vaguely 
troubled.  That  vile  pit  and  the  thought  of 
what  it  had  contained  had  spoiled  my 
promenade.  As  I  had  found  on  a  thousand 
other  occasions,  my  freedom  in  Belgium  was 


The  Deserter 

only  a  fiction.  The  war  could  not  be  for- 
gotten, even  for  an  hour. 

A  partridge  thundered  up  at  our  feet  and 
rocketed  to  earth  again  beyond  the  protecting 
pines.  In  a  little  glade  we  surprised  four 
young  rabbits  together  at  breakfast.  The 
Baas  laid  his  hand  lightly  on  my  arm.  "It 
is  sad,  monsieur,  isn't  it?"  he  said.  "The 
poachers  steal  right  and  left  nowadays.  The 
gardes  champetres  are  no  longer  armed,  so  the 
thieves  do  as  they  will.  There  is  more 
pheasant  in  the  city  markets  than  chicken, 
and  more  rabbit  than  veal.  The  game  will 
soon  be  gone,  like  our  horses  and  cattle. 

"You  remember,  monsieur,  the  sand  dunes 
by  Blankenberghe  and  Knocke  on  the  Bel- 
gian coast?  Ah,  the  rabbits  that  used  to  be 
in  those  dunes !  But  now  the  firing  of  cannon 
has  driven  them  all  away.'* 

A  silence  fell  upon  us  both.  The  thickets 
grew  denser,  and  we  pushed  our  way  slowly 
toward  the  deeper  coverts.  I  found  myself 
thinking  of  the  little  crosses  along  the  sea- 
side dunes  which  marked  where  greater  game 
[101] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

than  rabbits  had  fallen — the  graves  of  men 
— the  biggest  game  on  earth — the  shallow 
pits  and  the  frail  wooden  crosses,  like  that 
which  the  Baas's  leather  boot  had  crushed 
a  half  hour  before. 

We  had  reached  the  deepest  woods  when 
a  gasping,  choking  cry  stopped  us  short. 
The  thicket  directly  before  us  stirred  and 
then  lay  still  as  death.  The  cry  had  been 
horrible  as  a  Banshee's  wail,  and  as  myste- 
rious, but  it  was  not  the  cry  of  an  animal; 
it  was  human,  and  it  came  from  a  human 
being  in  agony.  The  Baas  crossed  him- 
self swiftly  and  leaped  forward,  and  instantly 
we  had  parted  the  protecting  bushes  and 
were  looking  down  on  a  man  lying  flat  on 
the  ground — a  spectre  with  a  thin  white 
face,  chattering  teeth,  enormous  frightened 
eyes,  and  a  filthy,  much-worn  German  uni- 
form. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  I  demanded. 

The  soldier  did  not  answer,  he  did  not  rise, 
he  lay  motionless  and  hideous,  like  a  beast. 
Then  I  caught  sight  of  his  left  ankle,  enor- 
[  102] 


The  Deserter 

mously  swollen  and  wrapped  in  rags,  and  his 
hands — they  were  thin  as  sticks.  The  man 
was  helpless,  and  he  was  starving. 

And  now  came  a  strange  thing.  We  two 
walked  slowly  around  the  man  on  the  ground, 
as  if  he  were  a  wild  creature  caught  in  a 
snare.  We  felt  no  pity  or  astonishment; 
only  curiosity.  Utterly  unemotionally  we 
took  note  of  him  and  his  surroundings. 
He  had  no  gun,  no  knife,  and  no  blankets. 
He  lay  on  some  broken  boughs,  and  he 
seemed  to  have  covered  himself  with  boughs 
at  night.  The  wild,  haggard  eyes  turned 
in  their  sockets  and  watched  us  as  we  moved, 
but  otherwise  no  part  of  the  man  stirred. 
He  seemed  transfixed,  frozen  in  an  agony  of 
fear  and  horror. 

"Ashes!  He  has  had  a  fire  here,  monsieur, 
but  it  was  days  ago."  At  the  man's  feet  the 
Baas  had  discovered  the  remnants  of  a  little 
fire.  "Holy  blue!"  he  added  in  astonish- 
ment, "he  has  eaten  these!" 

A  pile  of  small  green  twigs  lay  near  the 
fire.  The  bark  had  been  chewed  from  them! 
[103] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

At  the  end  of  our  search  we  turned  again 
to  the  man  on  the  ground.  "Who  are  you? 
What  are  you  doing  here  ? "  I  demanded  again. 
There  was  no  answer.  "Baas,  have  you  a 
flask?" 

The  old  man  slowly  drew  a  little  leather- 
clad  bottle  from  his  breast  pocket  and  passed 
it  to  me  in  silence.  He  offered  it  with  obvious 
reluctance,  and  watched  jealously  as  I  knelt 
and  dropped  a  little  stream  of  liquid  between 
the  parted  lips  of  the  creature  on  the  ground. 
The  man's  lips  sucked  inward,  his  throat 
choked  at  the  raw  liquor,  he  opened  his  mouth 
wide  and  gasped  horribly  for  breath,  his 
knees  twitched,  and  his  wrists  trembled  as 
if  he  were  dying.  Then  the  parched  mouth 
tried  to  form  words;  it  could  only  grimace. 

For  a  moment  I  felt  a  mad  impulse  to  leap 
on  that  moving  mouth  and  crush  it  into  still- 
ness; such  an  impulse  as  makes  a  hunter 
wring  the  neck  of  a  wounded  bird.  In- 
stead, I  continued  dropping  the  stinging 
liquor  and  listening. 

Then  came  the  first  word.  "More!"  the 
[  104] 


The  Deserter 

black  lips  begged,  and  I  emptied  the  flask  into 
them.  The  Baas  sighed  plaintively.  "Ger- 
man?" the  soldier  whispered. 

"No.     American,"  I  answered. 

"The  other~one?" 

"Belgian." 

The  frightened  eyes  closed  in  evident  re- 
lief. The  man  seemed  to  sleep. 

"But  you?"  I  asked. 

"I'm  German — a  soldier,"  he  said. 

"Lost?" 

"Missing."  He  used  the  German  word 
vermisst — the  word  employed  in  the  official 
lists  of  losses  to  designate  the  wounded  or 
dead  who  are  not  recovered,  and  those  lost 
by  capture  or  desertion. 

"You  understand,  Baas?" 

"No,  monsieur." 

"He  says  he  is  a  German  soldier — a  de- 
serter, I  suppose,  trying  to  make  his  way 
over  the  frontier  to  Holland.  And  he  is 
starving." 

The  Baas's  face  became  a  battleground 
of  emotions.  His  kindly  eyes  glared  merrily, 
[105] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

his  lips  twisted  until  his  beard  seemed  to 
spread  to  twice  its  natural  width.  Instantly 
his  face  became  grave  again,  then  puzzled, 
even  anxious.  A  stream  of  invective  and 
imprecation  in  mingled  French  and  Flemish 
poured  from  his  troubled  lips,  and  he  stamped 
his  feet  vigorously. 

"He  can't  stay  here,"  I  concluded. 

"It  is  death  to  help  him,"  said  the  Baas. 

"For  you,  yes;  for  me,  no.  The  Germans 
can  only  disgrace  me  as  a  member  of 
the  Relief  Commission.  They  cannot  kill 
me." 

"He  must  not  be  left  to  die  here,  mon- 
sieur." 

"The  Germans  will  probably  search  your 
house  if  we  take  him  there." 

"He  may  betray  us  if  we  help  him." 

"That  is  possible.  But  you  see  he  is 
very  weak — almost  dead." 

"He  may  be  a  spy." 

"That  again  is  possible.  But  see!  He 
has  eaten  twigs!" 

"He  is  a  damned  pig  of  a  German!" 
[106] 


The  Deserter 

"But  you  do  not  feed  even  pigs  on  sticks 
and  leaves." 

"I  am  afraid,  monsieur." 

"So  am  I,  Baas.  Yet  you  must  decide, 
and  not  I.  It  is  much  more  dangerous  for 
you  than  for  me." 

We  stared  into  each  other's  eyes,  trying  to 
guess  each  other's  thoughts.  Every  one  in 
Belgium  knows  that  the  German  army  sows 
its  informers  everywhere.  We  could  not 
even  trust  each  other  in  that  stricken  coun- 
try. Deserters  and  traitors  were  tracked 
like  dogs.  Any  one  who  gave  aid  or  com- 
fort to  such  persons  did  so  at  the  risk  of 
his  life.  It  is  said  that  pretended  deserters 
deliberately  trapped  Belgians  into  aiding 
them,  and  then  betrayed  their  hosts.  Some- 
thing of  the  sort  was  hinted  in  the  famous 
case  of  Miss  Edith  Cavell.  Knowledge, 
then,  bade  us  be  cautious;  instinct  alone  bade 
us  be  kind. 

The  Baas's  wide  eyes  turned  again  to  the 
creature  on  the  ground,  and  he  sighed  plain- 
tively. "Monsieur,"  he  began,  in  a  very 
[107] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

low,  gentle  voice,  "I  will  help  him.  Give 
me  my  flask  and  I  will  go  for  food  and  drink. 
Then  we  must  plan.  Does  it  please  you  to 
remain  here?" 

"I  shall  stay  here  with  him." 

"Good!     I  will  go." 

I  knelt  beside  the  soldier  and  chafed  his 
filthy  hands  until  blood  flowed  again  in  his 
dry  veins.  The  swollen  pupils  of  his 
eyes  brightened.  He  talked  continuously  in 
a  thin  trickling  whisper — a  patter  of  in- 
formation about  dinners  he  had  eaten,  wines 
he  had  drunk,  his  military  service,  his  hard- 
ships, and  his  physical  and  mental  sensa- 
tions. I  had  read  of  victims  of  scurvy  in 
the  Arctic  snows  dreaming  and  talking  day 
and  night  of  food,  only  of  food.  So  it  was 
with  the  starving  soldier.  The  liquor  had 
made  him  slightly  delirious,  and  he  babbled 
on  and  on. 

His  broken   ankle  pained   him.     When   I 

moved  him   about  to  rest  it,  his  lightness 

astonished   me.     The   man   had   been   large 

and  heavy;  he  was  shrunken  to  a  bag  of 

[108] 


The  Deserter 

bones.  His  uniform  hung  about  him  like  a 
sack,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  slightest  jar 
would  snap  his  arms  and  legs.  Tears  welled 
under  his  heavy,  dirty  eyelids.  "Mother! 
Mother!"  he  whispered  once.  "Art  thou 
there?  Mother!"  Then,  as  his  eyes  again 
cleared  and  he  saw  the  trees  interarched  above 
him — the  trees  which  the  Baas  had  told 
me  were  one  spirit;  the  grim,  silent,  sepulchral 
trees;  the  haunted,  malignant  trees  which 
had  wooed  him  with  their  shelter  and  then 
broken  him  and  starved  him;  the  trees  be- 
neath which  his  forest-dwelling  ancestors 
had  cowered  for  thousands  of  years  and  to 
which  they  had  offered  human  sacrifices — 
he  broke  down  and  sobbed  horribly.  "She 
is  not  here!  She  is  not  here!  No,  she  is 
not  here!"  he  repeated  over  and  over  again. 

When  the  Baas  returned,  we  covered  the 
deserter  with  our  coats  and  fed  him.  Per- 
haps we  did  wrong  to  give  him  food,  although 
I  think  now  that  he  was  doomed  before  we 
found  him.  We  did  our  best,  but  it  was  not 
I  109] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

enough.  In  less  than  an  hour,  after  a  hor- 
rible spell  of  vomiting,  the  poor  man  was 
beyond  all  help  of  ours.  His  eyes  rolled 
desperately,  his  breath  came  in  horrid  gasps, 
and  he  grew  rigid  like  a  man  in  an  epileptic 
fit. 

We  tore  open  the  breast  of  his  uniform  to 
ease  his  laboured  breathing.  A  metal  iden- 
tification disk  hung  on  a  cord  from  about  his 
neck  over  a  chest  which  was  like  a  wicker- 
work  of  ribs.  His  belly  was  sunken  until 
one  almost  saw  the  spinal  column  through 
it.  His  tortured  lungs  subsided  little  by 
little,  the  terrifying  sound  of  his  breathing 
sank  to  nothing,  his  head  thrust  far  back 
and  over  to  the  right  side,  his  arms  stiffened 
slowly,  his  mouth  fell  open. 

We  watched,  as  if  fascinated,  the  pulsing 
vein  in  his  emaciated  neck,  still  pumping 
blood  through  a  body  which  had  ceased  to 
breathe.  The  top  of  the  blood  column  at 
last  appeared,  like  mercury  in  a  thermometer. 
It  fell  half  an  inch  with  each  stroke  of  the 
famished  heart.  It  reached  the  base  of  the 
[no] 


The  Deserter 

neck  and  sank  from  sight,  and  still  we  stared 
and  stared.  The  man  was  dead,  yet  I  seemed 
to  have  an  awful  vision  of  billions  of  sentient 
cells,  billions  of  little  selfish  lives  which  had 
made  up  his  life,  fighting,  choking,  starving 
to  death  within  that  cooling  clay. 

The  Baas  bent  his  head,  uncovered,  and 
crossed  himself.  With  a  quick  stooping 
motion  he  closed  the  wide-open  eyes  and 
straightened  the  bent  limbs.  Then  he  rose 
to  his  full  height  and  looked  at  me  sadly. 
"This  man  had  a  mother,  monsieur,"  he 
said.  "We  must  forget  the  rest." 

In  the  pit  where  the  other  German  had 
lain  we  buried  the  body  of  the  deserter,  and 
we  found  and  repaired  the  little  lath  cross 
and  set  it  up  at  the  grave's  head.  But  first 
I  took  from  about  the  neck  of  the  corpse  the 
oval  medallion  which  told  the  man's  name  and 
regimental  number.  It  was  a  silver  medal, 
finer  than  those  usually  worn  by  privates  in 
the  German  army.  I  have  it  by  me  as  I 
write,  and  on  it  is  etched  the  brave  sentence, 
[ml 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"God  shield  you  from  all  dangers  of  warfare, 
and  render  you  back  to  us  safe  and  victor- 
ious!" 

I  was  late  for  breakfast  at  the  Chateau, 
but  Van  Steen  kindly  made  room  for  me  at 
his  right  hand.  "Aha,  monsieur,"  he  called 
gaily,  "we  thought  you  were  helping  to  find 
the  deserter." 

"Wha-what,  monsieur  le  Baron?"  I  stut- 
tered in  amazement. 

"The  German  deserter.  A  file  of  soldiers 
woke  us  up  at  seven  o'clock,  inquiring  for 
one  of  their  men  who  ran  away  from  Mons  a 
month  ago.  They  are  searching  the  stables 
and  the  forest.  They  have  traced  him  here 
to  our  commune.  I  hope  they  catch  him!" 

My  fingers  clutched  the  silver  disk  in  my 
pocket.  "I  think  they  will  not  catch  him, 
messieurs.  He  ran  away  a  month  ago,  you 
say?" 

"A  month  ago.  .  .  .  But  it  is  noth- 
ing to  us,  eh?  Let  us  eat  our  breakfasts." 
The  Baron  bowed  grandly  to  me.  "Mon- 
sieur le  Delegue,"  he  began  in  his  smooth, 

[112] 


The  Deserter 

formal  voice,  "once  again  we  remind  our- 
selves that  it  is  thanks  to  you  and  the  gener- 
ous American  people  that  we  have  bread. 
It  is  thanks  to  you  that  our  noble  Belgium 
is  not  starving.  ...  Eh  bien!  Let  us 
eat  our  breakfasts." 
And  so  we  did. 


[H3l 


VIII 

THE  GLORY  OF  TINARLOO 

A  SECOND  time  we  seated  ourselves 
at  our  little  round  table  in  the 
restaurant  on  the  boulevard  Anspach 
— the  director  of  the  art  museum  and  I. 
A  mug  of  light  Belgian  beer  was  before  each 
of  us,  and  a  copy  of  La  Belgique  telling  of  the 
Somme  battles.  The  director's  hands  shook 
as  he  reached  for  the  newspaper  and  his 
half-finished  beer.  His  breath  came  in  short, 
apoplectic  gasps.  He  was  wildly  angry.  A 
couple  of  minutes  before  a  Flemish  newsboy 
had  rushed  into  the  restaurant  and  shouted, 
"Aeroplane!  The  Germans  are  shooting 
it!"  And  the  restaurant  had  emptied  like 
a  hive,  filling  the  boulevard,  where  every 
one  gazed  at  the  dull  gray  dragonfly  droning 
at  an  immense  height  over  the  city,  pursued 

F.W4.1 


The  Glory  of  Tinarloo 

with  soft  white  smoke-flowers  which  thudded 
as  they  bloomed  in  the  upper  air.  While  we 
watched,  an  old  peasant  in  wooden  shoes 
and  padded  black  petticoats  dropped  her 
market  basket  on  the  director's  toes.  He 
forgot  aeroplane  and  anti-aircraft  guns,  war, 
the  crowds,  and  me,  his  guest.  He  howled, 
he  cursed,  he  danced;  and  now  that  we  were 
safe  again  at  our  table  in  the  restaurant, 
anathema  and  malediction  still  tumbled 
from  his  full  red  lips. 

"Ces  sales  paysants,  Us  sont  des  brutes  ! 
Imbeciles  !  Idiots  !  Cochons  !"  he  stuttered, 
his  feet  prancing  under  the  table.  "They 
are  beasts  truly,  monsieur:  not  men,  but 
beasts,  these  peasants.  What  a  temper 
I  am  in.  But  these  beasts  of  peasants. 
Ah!  .  .  ."  he  smiled  suddenly  and  went 
on,  "I  will  tell  you  a  story  of  them. 

"You  have  heard,  monsieur,  of  Van  de 
Werve,  the  artist  ?  He  was  of  the  school  of 
Rubens;  he  died  in  Italy,  very  young.  He 
had  only  twenty-three  years  when  he  died. 
He  was  not  rich;  he  was  very  poor.  But 

[115] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

he  had  the  spirit,  the  genius,  the  flair,  and 
Rubens  loved  him.  The  Master  said  one 
day,  'You  must  go  to  Italy  to  study.  Here 
is  a  purse  of  gold.  Here  are  letters  of  intro- 
duction to  my  friends.  Here  is  a  horse.  Go  to 
Italy.'  And  the  young  man  started.  Months 
went  by  and  no  word  of  him  came  to  Rubens 
or  the  other  friends  he  had  in  Antwerp. 
He  did  not  arrive  in  Italy.  The  purse  of 
gold,  the  letters  of  introduction,  the  horse, 
the  pupil  of  Rubens — all  were  completely 
lost  to  sight.  After  a  year  some  friends 
set  out  to  search  for  him,  and  behold!  in 
the  village  of  Tinarloo  in  Brabant  they  found 
him,  painting  an  altar  piece  for  the  chapel  of 
that  place,  and  kissing  and  clipping  the 
daughter  of  the  burgomaster,  who  sat  on 
his  knee!  He  was  always  gallant,  was 
Van  de  Werve,  and  as  he  rode  into  Tinarloo 
on  his  way  to  Italy,  he  had  seen  and  fallen 
in  love  with  the  burgomaster's  daughter  and 
sat  at  her  feet  for  a  year. 

"But    the    altar    piece,    monsieur!     You 
have  never  seen  it?    Ah,  that  was  magni- 
[116] 


The  Glory  of  Tinarloo 

ficent — 'The  Virgin  of  the  Stair' — gold,  green, 
ravishing!  What  atmosphere!  What  feel- 
ing! What  soul! 

"I  saw  it  only  once  before  the  war.  I 
tried  to  buy  it  for  the  museum,  but  those 
dirty  peasants  of  Tinarloo  would  not  give 
it  up.  Ugh — a  village  of  fat  farmers  smell- 
ing of  dungheaps  and  cattle  pens  and  garlic! 
Their  chapel  was  bastard  Gothic — no  fit  place 
for  such  an  altar  piece.  I  urged  the  cure  to 
sell,  but  he  would  not.  He  was  ignorant  as 
his  peasants,  but  he  was  crafty,  too.  He  said 
the  picture  was  the  glory  of  Tinarloo,  the 
chief  joy  of  the  peasants.  I  offered  him 
twice  as  much  as  I  first  intended,  thinking 
he  meant  to  bargain  with  me;  three  times, 
four  times  as  much.  He  refused  two  thou- 
sand francs,  monsieur! 

"Afterward  came  the  war.\  I  am  a  brave 
man,  monsieur.  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  Ger- 
mans. When  they  advanced  near  to  Tinar- 
loo I  thought  of  the  'Virgin  of  the  Stair.* 
'It  must  be  saved,'  I  said  to  myself.  'Those 
peasants,  that  cure  will  be  glad  to  give  it 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

up  now.'  I  hurried  there  in  a  cart.  East- 
ward, near  Namur,  the  great  guns  roared. 
There  stood  sentries  along  the  roads.  Peas- 
ants were  running  away  before  the  Germans 
with  farmcarts  piled  with  goods.  They 
blocked  the  road,  and  I  had  even  to  beat 
them  out  of  my  way  with  my  whip. 

"  So  I  reached  Tinarloo.  Every  one  was 
terrified.  I  went  to  the  chapel.  The  cure 
was  there,  and  the  burgomaster,  a  toothless 
old  man  with  a  dirty  beard.  'Give  me  the 
picture,  quick,'  I  exclaimed.  'I  will  save  it 
from  the  Germans.  Quick!'  'No,  mon- 
sieur,' said  the  cure.  'The  picture  will  stay 
here.  It  is  the  glory  of  Tinarloo;  it  is  the 
chief  joy  of  our  peasants.' 

"There  came  a  scream  and  a  roar  from  the 
street,  monsieur,  like  the  sound  of  a  great 
storm,  and  I  knew  the  Germans  were  shell- 
ing the  village.  The  old  burgomaster  bel- 
lowed something.  I  do  not  understand 
Flemish,  but  I  knew  he  said  something  of 
the  church  and  the  picture;  maybe  it  was 
that  the  Germans  always  destroy  churches 
[118] 


The  Glory  of  Tinarloo 

and  pictures.  He  hobbled  out  'The  pic- 
ture, the  picture,  give  me  the  picture!'  I 
roared  at  the  cure.  'Give  it  to  me  or  I  will 
take  it.  Fool!  the  Germans  will  take  it  if 
I  do  not.  Give  it  to  me.  Quick!'  'It  is 
the  glory  of  Tinarloo;  the  chief  joy  of  our 
peasants.  I  will  not  give  it.'  'Then  I  will 
take  it,'  I  shouted,  for  I  was  stronger  than 
he,  monsieur.  He  clutched  me,  but  I  threw 
him  off  and  grasped  the  picture  by  the  cor- 
ner. There  came  another  roar,  terrible,  and 
a  part  of  the  church  tower  fell  through  the 
roof.  The  cure  screamed  and  dropped  to 
his  knees,  praying.  I  worked  to  get  the 
picture  from  the  frame. 

"Suddenly,  monsieur,  I  was  grasped  and 
thrown  down.  Those  brutes  of  peasants 
had  come  into  the  church;  twelve,  fifteen  of 
them,  following  the  burgomaster  with  the 
dirty  beard.  They  held  me  fast  with  their 
stinking  hands.  One  of  them  tried  to 
strangle  me,  and  my  neck  bears  the  marks 
to  this  day.  Bang — a  shell  fell  in  the  church- 
yard and  bits  of  shrapnel  ripped  the  win- 
["9] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

dows.  The  church  was  choked  with  dust 
and  roared  with  noise.  The  cure  stood  up 
before  the  picture.  He  yelled  to  the  animals 
who  held  me  down.  They  loosed  me,  and  I 
stood  upright,  gasping.  One  of  them  had  a 
great  club  in  his  hand,  another  a  dung-fork, 
another  a  flail.  They  gathered  close  to 
the  cure,  close  to  the  picture,  and  talked;  the 
fools  talked  while  shells  flew,  knowing  the 
Germans  always  aim  at  churches;  yet  they 
talked. 

"Then  the  cure  came  down  to  me  where  I 
was  standing.  'They  say  to  give  you  the 
picture,  monsieur,'  he  said.  'But  you  must 
swear  by  this  cross  to  bring  it  back  when  all 
is  safe.  It  is  the  glory  of  Tinarloo;  it  is 
the  chief  joy — 

"Monsieur,  there  was  a  scream  like  devils 
in  torment  and  a  shock  like  earthquake.  I 
was  knocked  from  my  feet.  Bricks,  timbers 
fell.  Dust  covered  me,  and  I  lost  conscious- 
ness. Long  afterward  I  found  myself  lying 
in  the  grass  of  the  churchyard,  among  the 
black  crosses,  and  the  cure  kneeling  over 
[120] 


The  Glory  of  Tinarloo 

me;  only  the  cure!  'Go,'  he  said.  His 
mouth  was  bleeding  from  a  deep  cut  and 
his  gown  was  slashed  to  ribbon.  'Go,  go,' 
he  said.  I  heard  him  as  if  in  a  dream.  'Go! 
There  is  no  longer  any  picture.  Go!  before 
the  Germans  come.' 

"So  I  came  away,  monsieur.  .  .  . 
They  are  strange  beasts,  these  Belgian 
peasants." 


[121] 


IX 


THE  instant  Father  Guido  died   his 
naked   soul   leaped   from   his  body 
and  ran  up  the  air  as  on  a  stair." 
Odile    stopped    her    story.     "Hoo-oo,"    she 
sighed  reproachfully,  crossing  her  gaunt  old 
hands  over  her  middle  and   staring  at  my 
sleepy  head.     "Mynheer  is  not  listening!'* 

Odile  always  came  into  my  bedroom  before 
I  was  up  in  the  morning.  It  was  her  func- 
tion to  waken  me,  and  then  to  gossip  with 
me  while  she  opened  the  green  Venetian 
blinds,  tightly  closed  the  windows  against 
the  noxious  air  of  morning,  laid  out  linen, 
and  prepared  my  bath  in  an  adjoining  room. 
Her  thin,  motherly  face  was  the  first  thing 
I  saw  when  I  wakened;  always  smiling,  no 
matter  if  things  had  gone  well  or  ill,  always 
[122] 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

ready  to  tell  me  a  story  if  that  were  needed 
to  put  me  in  a  good  humour.  "All  well, 
Odile?"  "/«,  mynheer,  except  that  the 
Germans  half  killed  a  policeman  in  front  of 
the  house  last  night.  He  screamed  horribly, 
mynheer."  Such  was  a  typical  morning's 
news. 

She  petted  me  outrageously,  and,  although 
she  never  summoned  courage  to  assert  it  to 
my  face,  among  the  servants  below-stairs 
she  gave  herself  airs  and  boldly  called  me 
her  bebe.  I  confided  to  her  my  love  affairs 
in  return  for  which  small  flatteries  she  em- 
broidered my  handkerchiefs,  criticised  my 
unstarched  American  shirts,  doped  me  faith- 
fully whenever  I  fell  ill,  and  protested  elo- 
quently against  the  perils  of  too  frequent 
bathing.  Daily  baths  might  be  healthy  in 
America;  they  were  certainly  unhealthy  in 
Belgium,  said  Odile. 

The   tale    of   what    happened    to    Father 

Guido    comes    back    to    me    in    fragments. 

Perhaps  Odile  did  not  tell  it  to  me  at  all. 

Perhaps  she  told  it  when  I  was  too  sleepy 

1  123] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

to  remember.  In  any  event,  I  cannot  now 
tell  how  much  is  hers  and  how  much  my 
own.  The  words,  alas!  are  mine,  in  any 
case. 

"Nay,  Odile,  I  am  listening.  Tell  me 
about  Father  Guido." 

"He  was  a  holy  priest,  a  canon  in  his  mon- 
astery, but  he  doubted  God's  promise  of  the 
bliss  of  heaven!" 

"Dreadful!" 

"Yes,  wasn't  it,  mynheer?  So  he  died,  and 
his  soul  ran  up  the  air  as  on  a  stair.  And 
now  listen!  The  soul  of  Father  Guido 
stopped  for  breath  and  wheezed  hard.  It 
was  not  used  to  running.  It  stood  stark 
naked  in  the  sunlight  just  three  meters  above 
the  bell-tower  of  the  monastery  where  he  had 
lived  and  served  God  twenty-seven  years. 
The  garden  looked  very  sheltered  and  in- 
viting. You  must  know  that  Father  Guido 
loved  gardening,  mynheer.  The  soul  could 
see  his  favourite  mulberry  tree,  and  acolytes 
in  gray  gowns  walking  beneath,  meditating. 
One  of  the  acolytes  lifted  a  hand  and  stole  a 
[  124] 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

berry.  'Rogue!'  the  soul  thought.  It  was 
about  to  walk  down  into  the  garden  and 
remonstrate  with  the  thief  when  suddenly 
it  leaped  into  the  air  as  if  a  wasp  had  stung 
it.  The  heavy  monastery  bell  just  below 
it  clanged  like  an  explosion.  Bang !  went 
the  bell;  then  again,  bang  !  and  after  a  pause, 
again,  bang!  'Some  one  is  dead,'  thought 
the  soul.  It  licked  its  lips  thoughtfully. 
They  tasted  damp  and  oily.  And  suddenly 
it  remembered — that  was  the  oil  of  extreme 
unction.  'I  am  dead,'  said  the  soul  of  Father 
Guido  with  resignation,  'and  on  my  way 
to  bliss — I  hope.' 

"The  soul  began  to  climb  up  long  vistas 
of  air,  but  abruptly  it  stopped.  'My  God, 
I'm  stark  naked!'  it  thought;  'stark  naked, 
and  the  eye  of  all  the  world  is  on  me.'  Not 
once  since  Father  Guido  donned  his  habit  had 
he  been  unclothed  in  public.  But  the  waste 
of  air  about  the  poor  soul  offered  no  shelter, 
and  there  was  no  returning  the  way  it  had 
come.  Its  chest  heaved  with  sorrow  and  its 
eyes  peered  everywhere,  above,  below,  beside 
[125] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

it;  but  nothing — not  even  a  summer  cloud — 
came  near  to  give  it  shelter*  'I'm  thin  and 
withered  and  I've  a  belly  like  a  tun/  the  soul 
said  bitterly,  and  it  slapped  its  thin  shanks 
as  it  ran,  and  breathed  hard. 

"A  hawk  circled  in  space,  and  the  soul 
turned  and  climbed  in  the  direction  of  the 
swinging  bird.  It  got  within  two  meters  of 
the  hawk  and  hailed  him  in  Flemish — for  all 
the  birds  understand  Flemish,  mynheer — 
but  the  hawk  sailed  by  unheeding,  its  eye 
on  the  distant  earth.  Father  Guido's  soul 
was  disappointed.  'But  if  I  can't  be  heard 
or  seen,  it  doesn't  much  matter  about  my 
clothes,'  it  said,  and  climbed  on  slowly. 

"The  high  air  grew  very  cold,  but  the  ex- 
ertions of  the  soul  kept  it  in  a  healthy  per- 
spiration. It  gathered  strength  and  agility 
as  it  climbed;  it  seemed  to  leap  from  hilltop  to 
hilltop  of  the  atmosphere,  and  below  it  earth 
fell  away  like  a  ball  dropped  into  a  well.  A 
shadow  came  crawling  from  the  east,  de- 
vouring the  earth  as  Father  Guido's  soul 
watched  and  climbed;  the  shadow  floated 
f  126! 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

like  pitch  over  all  the  world,  silently,  swiftly 
eating  everything.  It  reached  the  centre 
of  the  world.  It  devoured  the  monastery 
and  went  on,  gathering  all  things  into  its 
mouth.  Long  afterward  the  sun  dropped 
out  of  sight,  and  darkness  leaped  upon  the 
soul  high  in  air  and  cloaked  it  in  freezing 
night. 

"The  soul  was  dreadfully  alone  now,  alone 
with  millions  of  winking  stars,  but  it  climbed 
on  and  on  and  on. 

"Mynheer,  no  man  has  ever  told  how  lonely 
the  dead  are;  how  they  cry  out  in  the  dark- 
ness and  stretch  out  their  arms;  where  yes- 
terday there  was  warmth  and  light  and 
friendly  hands  and  soft  laughter  there  is  only 
cold,  emptiness,  nothing.  Oh,  how  lonely 
the  dead  are!  How  lonely  the  dead  are! 

"Men  do  not  know  how  many  months  or 
years  or  centuries  the  soul  climbed  up  through 
theswarmingstars,butatlastitcametothefoot 
of  battlements  shooting  up  into  space — bat- 
tlements that  rose  like  flames  rooted  in  clouds, 
and  burning  so  brightly  that  the  strained  eyes 
[127] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

of  the  soul  pinched  with  the  bliss  of  gazing. 
And  still  the  soul  of  Father  Guido  climbed 
and  climbed  and  climbed. 

"'It's  too  beautiful  for  purgatory;  this 
must  be  heaven/  said  the  soul  to  itself, 
'but  there's  no  door.'  And  indeed,  myn- 
heer, there  seemed  to  be  no  door,  for  the 
poor  soul  climbed  up  and  up  those  topless 
cliffs,  but  found  no  entrance  at  all.  'There's 
no  door!  There's  no  door!  There's  no 
door!'  the  soul  of  Father  Guido  repeated  like 
a  prayer  as  it  climbed  beside  the  battlements. 

"'God  and  Mary  help  us!'  it  sobbed  at 
last  in  despair;  and  no  sooner  had  it  said 
these  words  than  it  saw  a  little  gate  opening 
into  the  jewelled  heights,  and  it  flew  up 
hopefully. 

"Outside  the  doorway  it  paused,  There 
was  a  door,  half  closed,  and  the  soul  was 
afraid.  It. felt  conscious  again  of  its  naked- 
ness, although  the  paunch  was  gone  from 
constant  exercise  and  hard  muscles  showed 
under  its  star-burned  skin.  'I'm  a  thin  old 
codger,  though;  not  presentable  to  St.  Peter 
[128] 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

at  all.  I'll  wait  behind  the  door-post  until 
somebody  appears.'  So  it  pressed  its  ribs 
close  against  the  door-jamb  and  waited.  An 
hour  went  by,  or  a  minute,  or  an  age;  still 
nobody  appeared.  Father  Guido's  soul  grew 
anxious.  'I'll  look  inside — just  one  peek,'  it 
whispered.  'One  peek  won't  matter.'  So 
it  gently  pried  open  the  pearly  door  and  looked 
in. 

"An  armchair,  mynheer,  carved  of  jewels, 
like  the  battlements,  stood  beside  the  door, 
but  the  chair  was  empty.  The  soul  looked 
farther.  'Hum  !'  it  said  thoughtfully; 
'there's  no  -pater  hospitalis  here.  I'm  disap- 
pointed. And  St.  Peter's  left  no  substitute.' 

"Father  Guido,  you  must  understand, 
mynheer,"  said  Odile,  by  way  of  parenthesis, 
"had  been  pater  hospitalis  in  his  monastery. 
He  took  care  of  the  guests,  he  selected  the 
wines,  he  was  jovial  in  welcoming  those  who 
came  and  tearful  in  bidding  adieu  to  those 
who  went;  so  he  was  distressed  that  no  one 
should  meet  him  at  the  gate  of  heaven." 

I  nodded  sympathetically,  and  she  went 
[129] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

on:  "A  little  weed  grew  in  a  crack  in  the 
golden  pavement  where  the  holy  saint's  feet 
had  worn  the  flagstone  smoothest,  and  a 
green  scurf  of  moss  pushed  out  here  and 
there  in  the  golden  gutters.  *  That's  strange; 
that's  strange  indeed,'  said  the  soul  of  Father 
Guido;  but  it  had  little  time  to  wonder  at 
small  things  like  these,  for  the  whole  of  heaven 
towered  before  its  eyes.  Streets  and  man- 
sions and  gardens  blazed  with  lights  of  a 
thousand  colours;  mansions  of  silver  and 
amethyst  and  jacinth  rose  amid  bowers  of 
roses;  towers  and  roofs  and  walls  and  lattices 
shone  like  jewels  in  changeless  sunlight,  and 
avenues  of  strange  trees  stretching  farther 
than  eye  could  see  glowed  green  as  emerald 
along  streets  of  gold. 

"But  there  was  no  sound  anywhere,  myn- 
heer. Father  Guido's  soul  held  its  breath 
with  holy  awe  and  fear.  In  spite  of  the 
warmth  of  the  eternal  sunlight  sluicing  its 
bare  limbs,  cold  perspiration  came  out  on 
its  neck  and  face,  and  goose-flesh  pricked  its 
legs.  The  soul  hid  itself  in  a  rose  hedge  and 

[  130] 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

waited  breathlessly.  Nothing  appeared. 
Still  there  was  no  sound.  Presently  the 
soul  crept  out  again  and  pattered  cautiously 
up  the  golden  avenue,  picking  little  rose 
thorns  from  its  sides  and  back  as  it  marched. 

"Glorious  beyond  the  prophecies  of  saints 
and  evangels  was  heaven,  rising  terrace  on  ter- 
race, height  upon  height,  glowingwith  the  light 
of  gems,  bourgeoning  with  gardens,  and  flash- 
ing with  pools  of  clear  blue  water;  so  that  the 
soul  of  Father  Guido  climbed  and  climbed, 
speechless  and  marvelling.  And  still  there 
was  no  sound  but  those  of  its  bare  feet  slap- 
ping the  golden  pave. 

"So  the  solitary  soul  came  at  last  to  the 
summit  of  all  Created  Things;  to  the  Moun- 
tain that  is  like  a  Diamond,  with  the  sun- 
light flashing  naked  swords  above  it;  to  the 
Palace  which  is  carved  like  a  human  heart 
from  a  Jewel  for  which  there  is  No  Name; 
and  the  soul  knew  that  this  was  the  Home  of 
the  King  of  Kings,  of  the  Verigod  of  Verigods, 
and  it  knelt  on  the  pavement  in  terrified  awe 
and  worshipped. 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"But,  mynheer,  the  naked  toes  of  the  poor 
soul  of  Father  Guido  nestled  into  the  heart  of 
a  little  thistle  growing  in  the  grass  beside  the 
golden  stair  leading  up  to  the  Palace  of  God, 
and  the  prick  roused  it  from  its  devotions,  so 
that  it  sprang  to  its  feet  abruptly,  and  bent 
over  and  rubbed  the  hurt  digits.  'God  save 
us!'  it  ejaculated  piously.  'Salvation  or 
damnation,  that  hurts!  But  I  must  go  on!' 
And  it  pattered  up  the  palace  steps. 

"Mynheer,  there  were  no  guards  at  the 
steps.  There  were  no  watchmen  at  the  door. 
There  were  no  angels  inside  the  door.  The 
corridors  were  empty.  But  at  the  far  end  of 
the  central  corridor  the  soul  saw  a  curtain 
hanging  from  ceiling  to  floor,  red  as  blood, 
tremendous,  veiling  mysteries. 

"The  soul  of  Father  Guido  went  forward 
to  see  what  the  curtain  concealed.  It 
reached  the  curtain.  It  stretched  out  its 
hand.  It  touched  the  curtain.  Then  it 
caught  the  hem  and  pulled." 

Odile  stopped  and  drew  a  long  breath, 
watching  me  narrowly. 

[  132] 


A  Flemish  Fancy 

"Please  go  on,"  I  begged. 

"Mynheer,  there  was  nothing  inside!" 

"What?" 

"There  was  nothing  inside!" 

"Ugh!  Served  him  right,  then,"  I 
grunted. 

"But  no,  listen.  You  have  forgotten  the 
power  of  God.  The  soul  of  Father  Guido 
dropped  the  curtain  and  fell  flat  on  the 
ground.  It  could  not  believe  what  it  had 
seen,  and  it  fell  to  screaming,  the  most  hor- 
rible screams  that  heaven  ever  heard.  It 
screamed  again  and  again,  like  a  child  in  the 
dark,  like  a  little  lost  child. 

"And  then  suddenly,  mynheer,  there  was 
a  roar  of  wings,  and  loud  singing,  and  a 
brightness  new,  like  lightning,  and  the  air 
was  thick  with  angels  playing  and  dancing 
and  whistling.  Father  Guido  had  believed, 
you  see,  or  else  his  soul  would  not  have 
been  disappointed  and  would  not  have 
screamed.  He  doubted  as  you  doubt,  myn- 
heer! 

"And  now,  when  St.   Peter  is  tired,  the 

[133] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

soul  of  Father  Guido  sits  in  the  chair  beside 
the  little  gate  to  welcome  newcomers,  as  he 
used  to  do  in  the  monastery,  and  he  is  kind 
to  those  who  come,  mynheer,  for  he,  too,  has 
known  what  it  is  to  doubt." 


THE    SWALLOWS    OF   DIEST 

MY  AUTOMOBILE  broke  down  on 
the  outskirts  of  Diest,  and  I  was 
obliged  to  spend  the  night  in  the 
Gouden  Kat — a  typical  Flemish  inn.  A  dozen 
little  round  tables  stood  outside  on  the  flag- 
stones bordering  the  Grand'  Place,  the  sup- 
per room  within  was  divided  about  equally 
among  food,  drink,  and  billiards,  and  ma- 
dame  sat  in  state  behind  a  showcase  of 
cigarettes.  There  were  no  Germans  lodged 
in  the  Gouden  Kat  so  I  was  given  the  best 
room,  and  as  I  came  down  the  tiny,  twisted 
stair  after  a  good  night's  sleep  in  a  high  bed 
with  carved  posts  at  either  corner,  a  tester 
and  lacy  hangings,  under  a  black  crucifix 
and  the  faded  eyes  of  a  colour  print  of  King 
Albert,  a  small  gray  feather  spun  slowly 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

down  and  fell  at  my  feet  in  the  doorway. 
There  was  a  flutter  of  wings,  and  a  swallow 
skimmed  over  my  head,  almost  touching 
me,  and  out  through  the  open  door. 

A  few  gloomy  citizens,  an  occasional  house- 
wife, small  boys  and  girls  in  neat  cheap 
clothes  and  noisy  wooden  shoes  stalked 
across  the  open  square  before  the  cathedral. 
A  squad  of  German  soldiers  tramped  by 
on  their  way  to  the  Kommandantur  in  the 
Stadthuis.  Soon  mass  was  over,  and  a  flood 
of  grave,  black-clad  figures  filled  the  square 
and  melted  away  into  the  by-streets.  A  worn 
black  flag  fluttered  from  a  pole  on  the  very 
top  of  the  church. 

"Madame,  what  is  the  black  flag  on  your 
cathedral?"  I  asked,  sipping  black  coffee. 
"It  was  once  white,  that  flag,  monsieur." 
"But,  madame!  it  is  coal  black." 
"Monsieur,  it  is  the  flag  which  we  of  Diest 
hoisted  when  the  Germans  came.     Aerschot, 
Louvain,  Schaffen — they  were  destroyed  by 
the    Germans.     Diest,"    she    shrugged    her 
shoulders,  "Diest  is  as  you  see  it." 
[136] 


The  Swallows  of  Diest 

Across  the  Grand'  Place,  behind  the  gates 
of  a  porte  cochere  belonging  to  a  rival  inn,  I 
found  my  chauffeur,  Alexis,  busy  with  the 
broken  motor. 

"Monsieur,  this  is  the  cylinder  which  does 
not  march,"  he  called  loudly,  his  tricky  eyes 
eager  for  praise  and  his  mouth  smiling  blandly 
behind  his  curved  moustaches.  "More  oil!" 
he  ordered  imperiously  from  the  bent  old  inn- 
keeper who  stood,  cap  in  hand,  watching;  and 
while  the  man  shuffled  off  with  a  wash-bowl, 
Alexis  loudly  continued  to  explain  to  me  the 
difficulty.  "I  am  mechanician  as  well  as  chauf- 
feur, monsieur,"  he  declaimed,  although  I 
was  well  aware  of  the  fact.  "I  will  arrange 
everything.  In  an  hour  all  is  arranged." 

A  side  glance  gave  me  the  clue  to  Alexis's 
authoritative  tone.  The  young  wife  of  the 
innkeeper,  a  heavy  flaxen-haired  Flemish  wo- 
man, watched  smiling  from  the  open  door. 
Alexis's  gestures  and  mouthings  were  for  her. 

In  the  rafters  over  the  motor-car  I  heard 
soft  cheeping,  and  a  swallow  slid  from  a  mud 
cup  fixed  to  one  of  the  timbers  and  stole  out 

[  137] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

into  the  morning  sunshine.  There  were 
other  earthen  cups,  lined  no  doubt  with 
feathers,  in  the  shadow  above  us:  three  or 
four  cups  brimming  with  swallow  babies. 
One  after  another  the  gray-blue  mothers 
came  and  went,  circling  fearlessly  over  us, 
engaged  in  the  sensible  business  of  filling 
the  world  with  swallows. 

"In  an  hour,  monsieur,  all  is  arranged," 
Alexis  repeated,  trying  to  get  rid  of  me.  So  I 
determined  to  stay. 

"Madame,  a  cup  of  the  white  beer  of  Lou- 
vain,  if  you  please,"  I  ordered. 

She  answered  my  French  with  a  question 
in  Flemish.  "Wat  segt  U,  mynheer  ?" 

"Wittebeer  van  Leuven>  als  't  je  belief t,  ma- 
dame." 

"  Een  potteke  Lovens  voor  mynheer,  Mar- 
iekey  allez!"  chuckled  the  bent  old  innkeeper, 
coming  up  with  a  bowl  of  oil  and  shoving 
her  with  his  shoulder. 

"Coed,  goed,"  she  answered,  and  disap- 
peared, still  smiling. 

Alexis  sulked,  but  worked;  the  innkeeper 
[138] 


The  Swallows  of  Diest 

watched  admiringly;  I  sat  in  a  tiny  chair 
propped  against  the  inn  door  and  talked  with 
madame,  while  the  swallows  circled  and 
cheeped  overhead.  The  motor  backfired 
when  it  was  tested,  and  the  swallows  screamed 
in  fright  and  fled  through  a  cloud  of  stifling 
smoke  which  rose  into  their  nests.  But  in  a 
moment  they  were  back  again  at  work,  filling 
the  world  with  swallows. 

"Like  the  cannon,  is  it  not?"  said  madame 
in  sluggish,  country-bred  Flemish,  speaking 
of  the  motor's  tricks.  "But  the  swallows 
return."  She  laid  her  hand  on  her  breast 
with  a  curious,  passionate  gesture. 

"He  is  your  husband?"  I  pointed  to  the 
old  innkeeper,  bent  almost  double  over  the 
motor  as  he  watched  Alexis. 

"Yes,  mynheer." 

"You  have  children?" 

"I  shall  have  one  in  three  months — about 
All  Saints'  Day,  mynheer."  She  spoke 
with  the  simplicity  of  a  peasant,  to  whom 
life  and  death  and  birth  and  growth  are  the 
simplest  things  in  a  complex  world. 
[  139] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Are  you  glad,  madame?" 

"Glad?  No,"  she  said  after  a  pause, 
smiling  still. 

"Are  you  sorry?" 

"No,  mynheer." 

"He  is  an  old  man,  your  husband,"  I 
Remarked  after  a  long  silence. 

"Yes,  he  is  old,  mynheer." 

"You  love  him?" 

"Love  him?    No." 

"Do  you  hate  him,  then?" 

"No,  mynheer.     Why  should  I  hate  him?" 

"Alexis,  there,  is  a  jolly  fellow.  What  do 
you  think  of  him?" 

"I  do  not  think  of  him,  mynheer." 

I  changed  the  subject.  She  was  only  a 
peasant,  yet  she  knew  how  to  rebuff  my 
levity.  "Why  did  you  marry,  madame?"  I 
asked,  and  my  tone  was  seiious,  befitting 
the  question. 

"Why  does  any  one  marry,  mynheer?  I 
was  of  the  age — sixteen." 

"But  why  did  you  choose  him?"  I  ges- 
tured again  toward  the  old  man,  still  bent 

[  Hoi 


The  Swallotvs  of  Die  si 

over  Alexis  as  he  tugged  at  the  cylinder 
core. 

"I  did  not  choose,  mynheer.  The  swal- 
lows," she  pointed  to  the  earthen  nests, 
"do  they  choose?  Other  people,  do  they 
choose?" 

"No,"  I  admitted,  astonished  at  her. 
"It  is  Nature.  They  do  not  choose."  I 
felt  a  sudden  respect  for  the  dully  smiling 
enigma  before  me.  Love?  choice?  romance? 
the  adventure  of  living? — what  were  they 
after  all?  The  stress  of  towns  has  bred 
these  fantastic  ideas  in  men's  brains.  This 
country  woman  knew  she  was  no  different 
from  birds  and  beasts,  and  she  knew  that  it 
did  not  really  matter  to  anybody — not  even 
to  herself.  In  a  few  slow  words,  still  smiling, 
she  sketched  the  dull  drama  of  her  life: 
peasant-born,  unbeautiful,  bought  from  her 
family  by  the  old  innkeeper  as  soon  as  the 
Church  permitted  her  to  marry,  twice  a 
mother,  but  both  her  children  dead,  pregnant 
again:  that  was  the  whole  story.  She  did 
not  know  that  her  recital  was  sad,  or  that 

[141] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

it  could  inspire  pity.  She  did  not  even  know 
that  it  was  interesting.  She  seemed  to  tell 
it  instinctively,  as  a  bird  cries  in  the  thicket 
or  as  a  tired  dog  whines  at  the  door. 

"Alexis,  is  the  motor  ready?"  I  called. 

"Almost,  monsieur,"  he  answered;  then 
turning  to  the  innkeeper  he  bawled,  "Get 
me  a  pan  and  matches!"  He  rested  his 
hands  on  his  hips  and  stared  insolently  at  the 
woman  and  me.  "Monsieur  has  seen  the 
flag  on  the  cathedral?"  he  asked.  He  con- 
tinued in  Flemish,  "The  brave  men  of  Diest 
ran  up  a  white  flag  while  the  Germans  were 
still  at  Liege!  Madame  says  they  did  well  to 
surrender." 

"I  said  that  to  surrender  is  nothing,  myne 
heeren,"  she  interrupted  slowly,  looking  at 
me  but  addressing  us  both.  "Every  thing 
surrenders." 

"Ha,  madame!  Foolishness!  Talk  like  a 
Belgian  patriot  if  you  please.  We  never 
surrender,  we  Belgians:  we  fight,  fight,  fight!" 
Alexis  swung  his  arm  and  waited  confidently 
for  my  applause. 

[142] 


The  Swallows  of  Diest 

"Madame,"  I  turned  to  her.  "You  think 
these  things  do  not  matter?" 

"They  do  not  matter,  mynheer,"  she  said, 
smiling. 

"The  invasion  of  Belgium? — that  does  not 
matter?" 

"It  does  not  matter,  mynheer." 

"Murder?  arson?  rape?  pillage?  millions 
dead  and  maimed?  millions  enslaved?  Ma- 
dame!" I  found  myself  addressing  her  as  if 
she  were  a  logician  instead  of  a  peasant. 

"It  is  nothing,  nothing;  I  know  it  is  noth- 
ing. I  feel  it  here."  Again  she  laid  her  hand 
on  her  breast  with  the  singular  passionate 
gesture  I  had  marked  before.  "It  does  not 
change  anything;  it  does  not  change  the  soil 
of  the  earth,  it  does  not  change  the  man,  it 
does  not  change  the  woman,  it  does  not 
change  the  child.  Then  it  is  nothing.  We 
of  Belgium  are  like  rain  falling  on  a  field: 
they  [the  Germans]  are  like  rain  falling.  We 
do  not  choose:  they  do  not  choose.  It  is 
all — nothing." 

Alexis  leaped  forward,  his  tricky  eyes  blaz- 

[i43l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

ing,  his  moustaches  stiff  with  anger.  These 
patriotic  outbursts  were  no  new  thing  to 
me,  yet  I  was  astonished  at  him.  He  trem- 
bled with  honest  emotion.  "Madame!  You 
are  no  Belgian,  you  are  no  Christian,  you 
are  no  woman!"  he  shouted.  "You  have  no 
sense  of  honour,  you  have  no  patriotism, 
you  have  no  decency.  Bah!  you  would  have 
us  handed  over  to  the  Boches!"  He  stopped 
his  tirade  abruptly  and  addressed  me  in 
French,  "Monsieur,  the  car  is  ready  in  a 
moment,  if  you  please.  This  woman — this 

woman "     He   raised   his   arm   as   if  he 

would  strike  her.  All  this  time  she  had 
stood  watching  and  listening,  still  smiling 
heavily  and  making  no  move.  "This 
woman  is  a  peasant,  she  is  not  human, 
she  is  a  beast.  .  .  .  Here!"  he  called 
to  the  innkeeper,  who  had  reappeared,  "give 
me  the  matches.  Hold  the  basin  there." 
He  jumped  back  to  his  place  and  pressed  the 
self-starter.  The  motor  hummed  with  cur- 
ious coughs  and  gasps  from  the  jury-rigged 
cylinder.  "It  will  march  until  we  reach 

[  H4] 


The  Swallows  of  Diest 

home,"  called  Alexis,  his  voice  still  keyed 
high  with  anger.  "Monsieur  is  ready?" 

I  paid  the  modest  reckoning  and  climbed 
into  the  tonneau.  The  woman  stared  past 
me  at  Alexis;  even  my  "good  day"  was  un- 
heard or  at  any  rate  unnoticed.  The  motor 
roared  and  the  frightened  swallows  flew. 
The  innkeeper  flung  open  the  double  gates, 
removing  his  cap  and  bowing  low,  and  we 
rolled  slowly  into  the  square. 

There  was  a  patter  of  slippers  on  the  cob- 
blestones behind  us,  a  gasp  and  a  choking 
cry,  and  madame  was  hanging  to  the  run- 
ning-board beside  Alexis,  pouring  forth  a 
torrent  of  passionate  Flemish.  The  Ger- 
man sentries  before  the  Stadthuis  across  the 
square  stared  anxiously,  passersby  stopped 
as  if  thunder-struck,  I  looked  back  and  saw 
the  old  innkeeper  standing  open-mouthed 
and  motionless  in  the  doorway. 

"Mon  Dieu,  monsieur,  she  wants  to  go 
with  me!"  muttered  Alexis,  mechanically 
stopping  the  car.  The  woman  flung  her 
arms  toward  me  with  a  piteous  gesture. 

[1451 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

Her  heavy,  ugly  face  streamed  tears.  All  her 
reserve,  her  self-control  were  gone.  She 
had  chosen  at  last,  and  she  had  chosen  this! 

"Wants  what,  you  fool?"  I  exclaimed, 
appalled.  "Drive  on,  Alexis.  Make  her 
go  back.  You  know  the  Germans  would  ar- 
rest us  at  the  first  sentry-post.  Damn  you, 
anyway!"  I  roared,  my  anger  mounting  to 
outraged  brutality  to  think  that  a  chauffeur's 
cheap  amour  might  land  us  both  in  a  Ger- 
man jail.  "What  have  you  done  to  get  us 
into  this  mess?" 

He  thrust  his  fist  into  the  pleading  face. 
"Go  back,  go  back,"  he  grunted,  apparently 
without  a  trace  of  feeling  for  her. 

"You  must  go  back,  madame,"  I  ex- 
claimed. "You  must  go  back!" 

She  ignored  me  and  again  burst  into  a 
storm  of  entreaty,  all  aimed  at  Alexis.  "No, 
no,  no,  no,"  he  shouted  in  answer  to  her  pleas. 
"Go  back  to  your  husband!  Go,  you — ani- 
mal!" 

At  that  word  she  dropped  from  the  car. 
"Go  on,  Alexis,  quick!"  I  exclaimed. 
[146] 


The  Swallows  of  Diest 

Her  hand  flew  to  her  breast  with  the  old 
gesture.  As  the  automobile  leaped  forward, 
she  walked  a  few  steps  toward  the  inn.  I 
turned  and  watched  her:  Alexis  stared  straight 
in  front  of  him.  She  wheeled  and  looked  after 
us,  her  hand  still  at  her  breast,  her  body  sway- 
ing from  side  to  side.  Then  she  looked  at  the 
inn,  and  again  at  the  fleeing  car.  Finally,  as 
we  dashed  away  from  the  square,  I  saw  her 
stumbling  toward  the  wretched  old  man,  who 
still  stood  in  the  blazing  sunlight  which 
streamed  through  the  open  doorway,  while 
the  swallows  of  Diest  circled  and  cried  over 
his  hoary  head. 


[147] 


XI 

PENSIONERS 

WILSON  belonged  emphatically  to 
the  genus  Homo  sapiens:,  species, 
Texicana;  habitat,  southwestern 
parts  of  the  United  States  and  Antwerp,  Bel- 
gium. He  was  tall  and  lithe  and  handsome, 
and  also  sentimental.  He  was  the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  American  Commission  for  Relief  in 
Belgium  who  flatly  refused  to  fly  the  Amer- 
ican flag  from  his  automobile;  he  was  the  only 
member  who  publicly  declared  that  he  said 
his  prayers  every  night,  but,  as  he  confided 
to  me  once  in  a  moment  of  great  emotion,  he 
had  never  in  his  life  prayed  for  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  The  reason  for  these 
startling  facts  was  that  Wilson  was  an  un- 
reconstructed rebel  and  wore  pinned  in  his 
shirt,  just  over  his  heart,  a  little  butternut 
[148] 


Pensioners 

badge  which  his  grandfather  had  worn  in  '63 
— a  symbol  of  the  dead  Confederacy  and  the 
Lost  Cause. 

We  used  to  sing  him  a  gay  song  which 
ran: 

An  unreconstructed  rebel,  that  is  what  I  am. 
For  this  fair  land  of  freedom  I  do  not  give  a  damn! 
I'm  glad  we  fought  against  them:  I'm  sorry  that 

they  won, 
And  I  do  not  ask  your  pardon  for  anything  I've 

done. 

I  fit  with   Stonewall  Jackson:  of   that  there  is 

no  doubt; 
Got  wounded   in   three   places  a-storming   Fort 

Lookout. 

I  coched  the  rheumatism  campaigning  in  the  snow, 
But  I  killed  a  sight  o'  Yankees,  and  I  wisht  it 

had  been  mo'. 

I  hates  the  Yankee  nation  and  everything  they  do. 
I  hates  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  too. 
I  hates  the  Yankee  eagle  with  all  his  scream  and 

fuss, 
But  a  lying,  thieving  Yankee,  I  hates  him  wuss 

and  wuss! 

We  called  him  "Johnny  Reb,"  "Tex,"  or 
"Stonewall  Jackson,"  just  as  it  happened  to 
strike  us. 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

Wilson  was  disturbed  about  something. 
"The  Socialists  are  right,"  he  said,  thought- 
fully, drawing  his  six  feet  two  from  the  chair 
beside  my  office  desk.  "There's  only  one 
way  to  prevent  wars — kill  the  spirit  of  pa- 
triotism. Look  at  that  old  fool  out  there!" 
he  continued,  bitterly,  pointing  toward  2 
gray-bearded  Landsturm  soldier  in  shapeless 
flat  service  cap,  faded  gray-green  uniform 
and  high  hob-nailed  boots,  who,  with  gur, 
on  shoulder,  strode  along  the  pavement  of 
the  Graanmarkt  on  his  way  to  the  Kom- 
mandantur:  "That  old  fellow  is  probably 
a  toy-maker  in  Nuremberg  or  a  barber  in 
Munich,  and  here  he  is  wandering  round 
Belgium  ready  to  die  for  Kaiser  and  Vater- 
land!" 

"Mankind's  a  failure,"  I  acknowledged 
cheerfully.  "Go  on,  Wilson."  I  knew  these 
moods. 

"The  trouble  is  this,"  he  drawled.     "There 

are  five  old  Belgians  in  the  outer  office  who 

have  come  to  ask  about  their  pension  money. 

It's  the  first  time  I've  had  to  do  with  Yankee 

[150] 


Pensioners 

pensioners.  They  were  here  yesterday," 
he  went  on,  impressively,  "and  for  a  solid 
hour  I  listened  to  one  of  'em  making  patriotic 
speeches  and  telling  me  how  he  fought  and 
bled  and  died  for  my  country — my  country  ! 
— a  damned  Yankee  pensioner." 

I  laughed  gleefully,  and  Wilson  turned  on 
his  heel.  "Sit  down,  you  Johnny  Reb," 
I  gasped.  "What's  it  all  about?  Are  they 
Belgian  citizens  who  fought  in  our  Civil 
War?" 

"'Civil  War'!"  he  quoted.  "There  you  go 
again!  Haven't  I  explained  to  you  that  you 
mustn't  call  it  the  'Civil  War?'  It's  the 
'War  between  the  States. ": 

A  timid,  eminently  respectful  knock  inter- 
rupted us,  and  Peeters,  the  clerk,  thrust  his 
head  through  the  half-open  door,  bowing  to 
each  of  us  in  turn.  "The  men  have  come,"  he 
announced. 

"What  men,  Peeters?" 

"The  men  who  saw  Mr.  Wilson  yesterday." 
He  coughed  apologetically.  "The  men  for 
the  pensions.  They  want  to  see  you,  sir." 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

I  looked  at  Wilson,  who  was  still  meditating 
flight  and  cursing  under  his  breath.  "Send 
them  right  in,  Peeters.  Mr.  Wilson  and  I 
are  delighted  to  see  them." 

"Delighted,  are  we?"  my  victim  snarled; 
then  his  voice  changed  to  honeyed  sweetness 
—the  sweetness  underlying  all  Southern 
courtesy  and  hospitality,  which  is  the  sweet- 
est in  the  world.  " A  ah,  goeden  dag,  myne- 
heeren,  quel  plaisir  de  vous  revoir  !  Mynheer 
van  der  Aa,  Mynheer  de  Vos,  Mynheer  Dek- 
kers,  Mynheer  van  Oolen,  Mynheer  Anderson" 
He  introduced  them  with  a  flourish — a  little 
file  of  old  men,  dressed  in  dingy  Sunday  best, 
with  heavy  leather  shoes  in  place  of  the  cus- 
tomary slippers  or  wooden  blokken,  each  hold- 
ing his  cap  in  his  hand,  each  bearded  and  be- 
whiskered,  each  with  thick  weather-worn 
skin  and  little  eyes  folded  deep  in  wrinkled 
cheeks.  These  were  the  pensioners. 

The  first  of  them  was  scarcely  five  feet 
high.  Little  black  eyes  snapped  out  from  be- 
neath his  bushy  brows,  and  he  wore  a  sweep- 
ing white  moustache  and  an  imperial.  The 
![  152  ] 


Pensioners 

second  was  tall  and  had  once  been  blond; 
now  he  was  bald  as  a  prophet,  and  his  great 
white  beard  swung  from  his  heavy  head  like 
a  broad  pendulum  ticking  off  the  minutes. 
The  third  was  blind;  his  graceful,  narrow 
head  tilted  forward,  a  flickering  smile  played 
about  his  mouth,  and  I  noticed  that  when  his 
attention  was  strongly  attracted  his  eyes 
occasionally  turned  up  with  a  strange  abortive 
movement,  as  if  he  might  take  the  darkness 
by  surprise  and  change  it  into  light.  The 
fourth  man  stood  straight  and  soldierly,  his 
knees  tight  together,  his  great  feet  splayed 
out  from  his  ankles,  and  his  arms  hanging 
perpendicularly.  He  had  an  ox-like  head, 
and  his  wide  shoulders  were  heavy  and 
stooped  with  age.  The  fifth  man  was  an  aged 
negro,  and  feeble-minded. 

Peeters  handed  me  a  little  paper  which  I 
read  aloud:  "Jan  van  der  Aa,  Pieter  de  Vos, 
Georges  Dekkers,  Willem  van  Oolen,  David 
Anderson.  Is  that  right?" 

" Ja,  ja,   mynheer"-   •"  Parfaitement,   mon- 
sieur"— "Yes,  sair,"  the  voices  quavered. 
[i53l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

"Don't  you  all  speak  English?"  I  de- 
manded. "You're  entitled  to  American  pen- 
sion money,  yet  you  don't  speak  our  language  ? 
Vous  ne  parlez  pas 

The  little  man  with  the  imperial  burst 
into  volcanic  speech.  "Sir,"  he  ejaculated, 
"they  have  forgotten  the  Eengleesh,  but  I— 
I  speak  it  pairfectly." 

Wilson  sighed.  "Yes,  hang  it,  he  does!" 
he  whispered  to  me.  "He's  the  damnedest, 
convincingest,  Fourth-of-July  orator  you 
ever  listened  to.  Now  he's  off!  You  can't 
stop  him!" 

"You  are  Jan  van  der  Aa?"  I  interrupted, 
after  the  first  sentence. 

"Jan  van  der  Aa,  sir,"  he  acknowledged, 
bowing,  and  continued  impressively:  "Sirs, 
you  see  beforre  you  five  men  who  fought  in 
the  Grrand  Arrmy  of  the  Rrepublic,  in  the 
grrandest  arrmy  of  the  grreatest  rrepublic  of 
the  earth."  He  rolled  the  rr's  like  thunder 
down  the  valleys  of  his  speech.  "It  was  not 
for  nothing  that  we  fought.  Liberrty  and 
Union  are  not  little  things.  They  are 


Pensioners 

eterrnal.  They  are  the  same  in  everry  coun- 
try and  in  everry  time.  We  five  were  at 
Gettysburrg  and  Cold  Harrbourr,  de  Vos  was 
at  Antietam,  Dekkars  was  wounded  at  At- 
lanta, I  was  at  Chickamauga  underr  Thomas, 
Anderson  was  at  Peterrsburrg" — the  strange, 
foreign  accent  turned  the  familiar  battle 
names  into  mighty  voices,  voices  to  conjure 
dead  men  from  the  grave  and  dead  deeds 
from  the  old  books  where  they  lie  buried; 
the  man  before  us  was  a  born  orator,  he  was 
winsome,  sweet,  powerful,  pathetic,  by  turns 

"Forrt  Fisherr,  Culpeperr  Courrt-House, 
Vicksburrg,  Shiloh,  Champion's  Hill,  Cairro, 
Chattanooga."  The  tremendous  words  rolled 
forth;  the  file  of  old  men  stirred;  they  awoke 
and  threw  up  their  heads  as  he  trumpeted 
forth  these  names,  and  I  seemed  to  see 
them  young  again  and  soldiers  of  the  Repub- 
lic. 

But  Van  der  Aa  stopped  abruptly.  He 
turned  half  apologetically  to  the  others, 
speaking  a  most  vulgar  and  harsh  Flemish: 
"'k  Heb  't  verget — I'd  forgotten  what  we  came 

[155] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

for — our  moneys,*'  he  said.  "Sirs" — he  ad- 
dressed Wilson  and  me  once  more — "our 
pension  moneys  are  overdue.  We  have  re- 
ceived nothing  since  Antwerp  was  captured. 
The  American  Consul-General  writes,  but  we 
receive  nothing.  Will  you  tell  Washington 
of  us?  The  Government  have  forgotten;  we 
are  far  away,  and  so  they  have  forgotten  us." 

I  turned  inquiringly  to  Wilson. 

"Oh,  tell  them  you'll  get  their  money  for 
them.  Tell  them  anything,"  he  whispered, 
harshly,  fumbling  his  handkerchief.  "Stop 
that  devil  of  a  Van  der  Aa!  You  don't 
understand;  that  man  can  talk  you  to  tears!" 

"Mr.  Wilson  knows  all  about  the  case,"  I 
said.  "He  will  cable  to  Washington  the  first 
time  he  goes  to  Rotterdam.  We  shall  do 
everything  in  the  world  to  get  your  money." 

Van  der  Aa  thanked  me  with  a  gesture  and 
a  low  bow,  and  repeated  my  words  in  Flemish 
to  the  others.  They  thanked  us  slowly. 
"And  now,  sirs "  he  began  again. 

"Stop  him,  for  God's  sake!"  groaned 
Wilson. 

[156] 


Pensioners 
Mynheer  van  der  Aa 


—the  only  things  men  gladly  die  for, 
freedom  and  union.  Freedom  and  union, 
one  and  inseparable,  now  and  forever." 

The  spell  came  over  us  like  a  ghost — the 
ghost  of  something  high  and  splendid — and 
the  voice  of  America  spoke  in  conquered 
Belgium.  Not  through  American  lips,  but 
through  the  lips  of  an  alien;  and  not  the  voice 
of  America  to-day,  divided,  disunited,  en- 
slaved in  a  thousand  ways  to  fear  and  base 
interests;  not  the  America,  I  suppose,  of  the 
sixties,  blatantly  provincial,  cursed  with 
over-confidence,  torn  with  civil  war;  but  the 
voice  of  the  ideal  America — that  America  of 
the  spirit  which  Lincoln  must  have  seen  as 
Moses  saw  the  Holy  Land  from  Mount  Nebo, 
the  America  which  may  be,  which  must  be; 
the  mighty  nation  like  a  city  set  upon  a  hill, 
with  the  glory  of  heaven  shining  upon  her, 
and  young  men  and  women  singing  in  her 
streets. 

I  mopped  my  eyes;  Wilson  coughed  and 
blew  his  nose.  The  five  old  men  stood  im- 

[iS7] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

perturbable,  and  Van  der  Aa  spoke  on  and 
on.  He  was  pitiless  and  glorious.  As  he 
talked  I  saw  a  flag  borne  to  the  tops  of  tall 
mountains,  flung  over  precipices,  whipped 
through  morasses  and  dismal  swamps,  flung 
up  from  the  sea  and  set  firm  in  rocky  earth; 
and  that  flag  was  the  American  flag — the  flag 
of  Wilson's  country  and  my  country.  These 
men  had  followed  that  flag— these  five  aliens. 
I  saw  freedom  and  union  like  simple  things, 
things  to  be  held  in  the  hand  as  well  as  in 
the  heart;  necessary,  elemental,  homely 
things.  And  I  saw  the  world-wide  war  which 
is  waged  in  every  land  against  freedom  and 
union — the  fight  of  caste  against  caste,  of 
class  against  class,  of  masters  with  slaves,  of 
the  state  against  its  citizens,  of  the  thousand 
and  one  Frankenstein  monsters  of  commerce 
and  industry  and  politics  and  religion,  fighting 
against  the  human  beings  who  have  created 
them.  Everywhere  I  gazed  there  was  war. 

"Liberty  and  union,  one  and  inseparable, 
now  and  forever,"  concluded  Van  der  Aa, 
his    right    arm    outstretched    to    emphasize 
[158! 


Pensioners 

his  last  period,  the  eyes  of  the  blind  man 
straining  up  to  catch  the  vanished  sun. 

Next  morning  Wilson's  motor  car  arrived 
an  hour  late  at  the  office,  and  I  noticed  that 
from  a  staff  wired  to  the  wind-shield  there 
floated  a  little  American  flag. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  defiantly,  "I  say  kill  pa- 
triotism and  you  kill  war.  I'm  taking  the  first 
step.  I  used  to  be  for  the  South  against  the 
world,  now  I'm  for  America  against  the 
world,  and  maybe  some  day  I'll  be  for  all  the 
world  against  the  world. 

"I'll  see  you  late  to-night,"  he  added,  very 
seriously.  "I've  got  to  go  to  Rotterdam  to 
cable  Washington  about  those  old  pensioners." 


[i59l 


XII 

DONA   QUIXOTE 

HER  parents  had  always  regarded  her 
as  a  sort  of  stepchild.  There  was 
Elaine,  her  elder  sister,  docile,  petite, 
with  fair  looks  and  a  proper  dot,  married 
at  eighteen  and  mother  of  two  babies;  but 
Virginie  was  twenty  and  unwed.  Although 
I  did  not  know  her  until  1914,  I  can  fancy 
the  picture  in  the  ancient  moated  castle  of 
Drie  Toren  two  years  before  when  Virginie 
faced  the  old  Baron,  her  father,  and  declared 
her  independence  of  parental  restraints  of  all 
sorts.  The  old  Baron,  bearded  like  a  Nu- 
midian  lion,  had  a  special  vocabulary  for 
matters  which  concerned  his  unmarried 
daughter.  "Incroyable!  penible!  triste!  ter- 
rible! effrayante!  bete!" — I  heard  them 
dozens  of  times  a  day — and  the  shy,  wilted 

[160] 


Dona  Quixote 

floweret  of  a  Baroness,  her  mother,  sat  with 
hands  placidly  folded,  waiting  for  the  final 
catastrophe  which  was  sure  to  overwhelm 
her  "pauvre  Virginie" 

La  Baronne  Virginie  was  delighted  to  tell 
me  of  the  famous  interview  with  her  father. 
She  told  it  with  shrieks  and  giggles,  between 
puffs  from  one  of  my  strongest  cigarettes, 
her  cold,  gray-blue  eyes — inherited  from  some 
merciless  Viking  ancestor  who  had  once 
harried  the  coasts  of  Flanders — dancing  with 
delight,  and  her  bright  golden  hair  waving 
as  she  tossed  her  head  to  give  point  to  the 
jest. 

"Mais,  ma  cherie,1  il  m'a  dit.' 

" Mais,  mon  pere,'  jai  dit.  .  .  .  The 
devil!  I  forget  always  and  speak  French. 
That  morning  I  was  very  angry,  so  I  slid  down 
the  banisters  and  shrieked  with  the  top  of 
my  breath,  and  there  was  my  father  at  the 
foot  of  the  stair,  like  this!"  She  made  an 
adorable  caricature  of  the  leonine  astonish- 
ment of  her  father  at  sight  of  the  apparition 
of  his  daughter,  her  foot  caught  in  her  skirt, 
[161] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

kicking  vigorously  to  free  herself  and  spread- 
ing tatters  of  lace  petticoat  over  the  Chinese 
carpet.  "Come  here/  he  roared,  as  if  I 
were  a  servant.  'Come  here,  cher  Papatjt, 
s'il  te  plait.  I  have  something  to  say,'  I 
answer  very  respectfully,  as  a  Belgian  girl 
must  always  speak:  'I  will  not  marry.  I 
will  not  worship  some  man  like  Jules.  (Jules 
is  my  brother-in-law.  He  has  red  hair  and 
a  wart  on  his  nose.  Ugh!)  I  will  not  have 
babies.  I  will  not  be  as  Elaine.  No,  no, 
no,  no,  no,  I  will  not.  I  am  going  to  England 
to  be  a  suf-fer-a-gette.  I  will  burn  churches 
and  bite  people.  I  hate  men!" 

"But  do  you  hate  us,  really?"  I  inter- 
rupted. 

"Of  course!"  The  light  of  her  eyes  was 
like  the  light  on  Swiss  glaciers.  "I  hate  all 
men — you  especially." 

I  was  hurt,  and  showed  it. 

"Ha!     I  do,"  she  repeated,  following  up 
her  advantage.     "And  I  hate  my  father- 
enough,  not  much,  just  a  little.     'Oufff!'  he 
says  to  me,  'what  for  a  person  is  this  my 
[162] 


Dona  Quixote 

daughter!  Have  I  not  give  you  all  in  the 
world,  miserable  one?'  'No,'  I  answer. 
'Freedom?  No.'  'Freedom!' he  says.  'Yes, 
freedom,'  I  answer  again.  'It  is  the  century 
of  the  woman.  We  must  have  freedom.'  (I 
got  that  from  an  American  book,  but  I  did 
not  tell  him.  He  was  so  troubled  already.) 

"So  next  day  I  went  to  England,  and  in 
England  I  burned  one  church  and  bit  two 
people." 

It  was  I  who  named  her  Dona  Quixote. 
For  all  her  Viking  eyes  she  was  a  perfect 
Spanish  type,  such  a  type  as  one  occasionally 
finds  nowadays  in  villages  of  the  Dutch 
Province  of  Zeeland  or  in  the  Belgian  Prov- 
inces of  East  Flanders  and  Antwerp,  almost 
the  sole  reminders  of  the  days  when  the 
Dons  lorded  it  in  the  Low  Countries.  She 
was  not  brunette,  but  a  Spanish  blonde, 
with  a  magnificent  complexion  burnished  on 
the  cheeks,  straight,  aristocratic  nose,  and 
jewelled  mouth.  The  oval  of  her  face  was 
positively  Mediterranean,  and  seeing  her 
[163] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

glorious  hair  I  knew  what  the  Elizabethan 
poets  meant  by  singing  of  "golden  wires." 
She  was  adorable,  perfect,  and  cold  as  frost. 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  I  began. 

"Madame!"  she  interrupted.  "Always 
call  me  madame." 

"Pardon,  but  why?" 

"Never  ask  me  the  why  of  anything.  It 
is  because  I  choose.  Isn't  that  enough  ? " 

"No,"  I  burst  out  angrily.  "Fm  a  reason- 
able being,  I'll  have  you  to  know,  and  I 
must  be  treated  reasonably.  What  the 
dickens ?" 

She  laughed  suddenly  and  delightedly. 
"Ice,  ice,  I  thought  you  were  of  ice.  I 
thought  all  Americans  were  of  ice,  Monsieur. 
Good !  You  thaw.  I  shall  tell  you,  because 
you  know  how  to  get  angry  like  a  Belgian." 

"Stop  teasing  me,"  I  muttered,  ashamed, 
sorry,  and  indignant. 

"At  the  convent  school  in  Bruges  where  I 

went  to  school  the  nuns  call  us  'madame'. 

It  is  a  school  for  the  petty  nobility,  you 

understand,  so  we  are  called  *  madame'  just 

[164! 


Dona  Quixote 

as  the  little  Princess  Marie-Jose  is  called 
'Madame'  and  not  *  Mademoiselle  la  Prin- 
cesse.'  I  like  it." 

"Well,  I  don't." 

"That  is  all  one  to  me,"  she  responded 
calmly.  "You  are  to  call  me  'madame'." 

"I  won't.  Not  until  you  are  married, 
and  maybe  I  won't  even  then.  Maybe  I'll 
call  you  by  your  first  name." 

She  examined  curiously  my  flushed  face, 
stubborn,  unhappy,  disgusted  with  my  own 
boorishness,  but  seeing  no  way  out.  Her 
cold  gaze  took  in  all  that  she  wanted;  noted 
that  I  was  a  fly  in  her  spider-net;  and  she 
dimpled  and  thawed  graciously.  "Please!" 
she  begged. 

"Mademoiselle — er — er "  I  stuttered, 

"do  you  know  Spanish?" 

"Not  a  word.  But  I  have  read  "Don 
Quixote,"  of  course." 

"Dona — that  is  Spanish  for  a  noble  lady. 
I  shall  call  you  Dona — Dona  Quixote  " 

"Wha-at?" 

For  the  first  and,  I  was  about  to  say,  the 

[165! 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

last  time,  I  caught  her  off  her  guard,  aston- 
ished, wounded,  a  bit  angry.  But  the  one 
word  was  all  I  wanted.  It  showed  me  I 
could  bully  her.  That  word  had  been  warm 
and  human,  utterly  unlike  the  icy  flood  which 
normally  came  from  her  lips.  "Dona  Qui- 
xote!" I  repeated  blandly. 

"You  shall  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Don 
Quixote  was  a  madman." 

"Yes,  and  you  are  a  madwoman.  You 
won't  listen  to  the  people  who  love  you." 

"You  are  not  to  say  that  word  to  me 
again." 

"What  word?" 

"That  word!     You  know — that  word." 

"Dona?" 

"The  other  one:  the  one  that  begins  with 
/  and  has  four  letters!" 


XIII 

IN  THE  STREET  OF  THE  SPY 

THE  Commissaire  of  the  Arrondisse- 
ment  of  Metseys  beat  on  the  glass 
front  of  the  limousine  and  arrested 
the  mad  career  of  the  Government  auto- 
mobile in  which  we  were  riding.  The  soldier- 
chauffeur  (a  Belgian  in  the  near-British  uni- 
form which  the  Belgian  army  now  wears, 
with  a  small  round  button  in  his  cap  marked 
with  the  Belgian  colours  in  concentric  circles 
—black,  white,  red)  turned  and  looked  back 
into  the  car  inquiringly.  "We  stop  here," 
the  Commissaire  announced  in  pantomime. 

Just  five  minutes  before  we  had  rushed 
directly  under  a  battery  of  heavy  French 
guns  blazing  away  like  furnaces.  I  did 
not  know  they  were  French  guns — although 
the  accent  was  marked! — until  the  Com- 
[167] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

missaire  told  me;  but  then  he  knew  every 
battery,  every  cantonment,  every  airdrome, 
and  every  hospital  in  that  little  bit  of  Bel- 
gium behind  the  Yser  lines  which  is  still  free 
from  the  invaders.  As  we  passed  the  bat- 
tery, a  wave  of  sulphur  had  engulfed  us,  the 
glass  of  the  limousine  rattled  dangerously, 
and  that  mad  chauffeur,  putting  on  all  power, 
had  rushed  us  down  the  winding  Flemish 
road,  scattering  stray  groups  of  mild-eyed 
Belgian  infantrymen  and  cavalrymen  and 
grazing  the  metallic  flanks  of  lumbering 
British  motor  lorries,  their  canvas  sides 
splashed  with  Flanders  mud,  on  their  way 
down  to  the  lines.  He  had  rushed  us  over  a 
little  canal  where  two  or  three  soldiers  were 
fishing  sleepily,  in  spite  of  the  noise  of  the 
bombardment.  He  had  dashed  us  alongside 
a  field  of  over-ripe  wheat,  through  a  long 
avenue  of  stunted  willows,  across  an  acre  of 
barbed-wire  entanglements,  and  into  the 
town  of  Zandt,  its  gray  walls  gleaming  in  the 
splashing  sunlight  which  had  just  followed 
the  customary  morning  shower,  its  claret- 
[168] 


In  the  Street  of  the  Spy 

red  roofs  burnished  like  the  morocco  binding 
of  old  books. 

We  stepped  stiffly  from  the  car  on  to  the 
slippery  cobblestones  and  stared  about  us. 

"The  Germans  shell  Zandt  almost  every 
day,"  said  the  Commissaire  coolly.  "That 
French  battery  we  just  passed  will  probably 
wake  them  up.  Put  the  car  in  the  lee  of  that 
wall,  Pierre,"  he  called  to  the  chauffeur. 
"We  shall  be  back  in  ten  minutes." 

"This,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  as  we  walked 
down  the  principal  street  of  Zandt,  "is  called 
the  Street  of  the  Spy,  because,  up  to  this  mo- 
ment, no  German  shells  have  fallen  in  it. 
The  population  of  Zandt  pretend  that  it  is 
because  the  Germans  have  a  spy  living  in 
this  street.  Droll,  isn't  it?" 

We  laughed  with  him.  It  is  true  that  no 
shells  had  fallen  in  the  Street  of  the  Spy, 
but  they  had  missed  it  by  inches,  not  yards  or 
rods.  If  I  have  ever  said  that  the  Germans 
do  not  use  heavy  calibre  shells  on  unfortified 
villages  and  towns,  I  apologize.  They  use 
their  very  heaviest  shells  on  these  little 
[169] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

defenceless  villages  of  west  Flanders  just  be- 
hind the  Yser  lines;  they  throw  almost  daily 
shells  which  are  as  destructive  as  cyclones 
into  three  or  four  room  dwelling-houses.  A 
row  of  such  houses  falls  like  a  sand  castle 
when  such  a  shell  arrives. 

"But  the  people  want  to  stay  here,  of 
course,"  explained  the  Commissaire.  "Where 
can  they  go?  The  peasant  and  the  man 
of  the  small  town  has  no  capital  except  his 
farm  or  his  house  or  his  winkel — his  little 
shop.  He  has  no  bank  account.  He  is 
primitive.  He  is  simple.  All  he  has  in  the 
world  is  here  in  Zandt.  And  so  he  stays.  Yes, 
we  give  them  gas-masks,  for  the  Germans  use 
asphyxiating  gas  very  often  here.  But  it  is 
hardest  on  the  children  and  the  little  babies. 

"Those  boys  we  are  sending  away  to-mor- 
row to  a  safe  place  in  France."  He  pointed 
to  two  youngsters,  nine  and  seven  years  old, 
peering  through  the  broken  glass  of  a  near-by 
window. 

"Are  you  glad  to  go,  manneken  ?"  he  asked 
the  elder. 

[170] 


In  the  Street  of  the  Spy 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,  mynheer." 
"But  why?" 

^Because  one  has  fear  of  the  bombard- 
ment, mynheer,"  said  the  boy,  shivering. 

"This  you  must  see,"  said  the  Commissaire, 
ducking  his  head  and  leading  us  into  a  small 
passageway  between  two  brick  walls.  "It  is 
the  most  interesting  person  in  Zandt.  She 
is  eighty-three  years  old.  She  lost  her  only 
grandson  in  the  war.  She  has  nothing  to 
eat  except  from  her  little  garden.  There, 
see!" 

We  had  emerged  on  the  edge  of  a  tiny  plot 
of  land,  perhaps  twenty-two  feet  square.  A 
gray  one-story  cottage,  covered  with  mossy 
thatch,  bounded  it  on  one  side;  low  walls  and 
an  outhouse  inclosed  it  on  the  others.  The 
little  plot  was  cultivated,  densely,  compactly, 
expertly — a  mosaic  of  fruits  and  green  vege- 
tables. Two  apricot  trees  trimmed  in  the 
French  fashion  were  trained  along  the  wall, 
and  a  low  vine,  with  some  sort  of  pendent 
fruit,  hung  from  the  outhouse. 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

But  strangest  of  all  there  were  three  beds 
of  ornamental  flowers.  I  stared  hard  at 
them,  and  suddenly  I  saw  that  they  were 
graves ! 

"Good-day,  madame,"  the  Commissaire 
called,  touching  his  hat.  "See,  these  are 
American  gentlemen  come  to  look  at  your 
little  garden." 

She  came  slowly  from  the  cottage,  a  wisp 
of  lace  in  her  white  hair,  wearing  the  cere- 
monial black  frock  which  a  peasant  woman 
puts  on  for  such  feast  days  as  the  Feast  of  the 
Assumption,  a  white  apron,  and  leather 
shoes.  "You  are  welcome,  gentlemen,  you 
are  welcome,"  she  said,  with  the  grace  of  a 
chatelaine. 

"But  aren't  those  graves?"  I  asked,  point- 
ing to  the  beds  of  nasturtiums,  geraniums,  and 
marigolds  which  covered  three  long  mounds 
at  the  end  of  the  garden,  taking  up  almost 
half  of  the  room  available  for  vegetables 
and  fruits.  "Madame,  aren't  those  graves?" 

"Oh,  yes,  mynheer,"  she  said. 

"They  have  not  been  here  long,  madame?" 
[172] 


In  the  Street  of  the  Spy 

I  was  looking  at  the  transplanted  geraniums, 
well  rooted  in  the  mud,  but  not  yet  wholly  at 
home,  and  the  raw,  muddy  rim  about  the 
edges  of  the  three  mounds. 

"Since  April,  mynheer.  I  tend  them  my- 
self," she  added  proudly. 

I  turned  to  the  Commissaire.  "None  of 
those  is  her  grandson's  grave?"  I  asked  in  a 
low  voice. 

"Oh,  no,"  he  muttered.  "Her  grandson 
died  in  Germany.  He  was  taken  prisoner 
at  Liege  in  August,  1914.  Madame,"  he 
said  to  her,  "the  gentleman  asks  if  he  may 
look  at  your  graves." 

"Oh,  yes,  mynheeren."  She  fluttered  down 
before  us,  bent  rheumatically  at  the  first 
mound,  and  pulled  at  a  weed  which  the  rain 
had  freshened. 

"Tray  for  the  soul  of  Franz  Mueller,"1 
I  read  in  breathless  amazement.  "A  Boche?" 

"A  Boche,  of  course!"  said  the  Commis- 
saire. 

"And  the  other  two — they  are  Boches 
also?"  Tray  for  the  soul  of  Max  Edel- 

[173] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

sheim'  and  Tray  for  the  soul  of  Erich 
Schneider,'"  I  read  aloud.  The  neat  wooden 
crosses  bore  also  the  regimental  numbers  of 
the  men  and  the  date  of  their  death. 

"Boches,  too.  It  happens  that  they  were 
killed  in  this  garden  on  a  reconnaissance." 

"But  why  don't  you  remove  them?  You 
can  put  them  somewhere  else,  and  then  this 
poor  old  woman  can  use  all  her  garden.  I 
should  think  she  could  hardly  raise  enough 
to  eat  from  all  this  little  plot,  let  alone  from 
half  of  it." 

We  had  spoken  in  French,  and  of  course  the 
old  proprietress  had  not  understood.  The 
Commissaire  now  turned  to  her,  speaking  the 
rhythmic,  metrical  Flemish  of  west  Flanders. 
"Madame,  the  mynheer  says  that  we  should 
take  up  these  bodies  and  place  them  in  the 
churchyard.  Do  you  wish  it  done  so?" 

At  first  she  did  not  seem  to  understand, 
and  bent  inquiringly  toward  the  Commissaire, 
her  little  gray  eyes  screwed  up  in  bewilder- 
ment at  his  words.  "What  is  it,  mynheer?" 
she  asked. 

[174] 


In  the  Street  of  the  Spy 

"Mynheer  says  that  we  should  remove  the 
three  Germans  and  let  you  have  your  gar- 
den." 

"Oh,  nay,  nay,"  she  remonstrated,  shak- 
ing her  head  emphatically.  "Nay,  myn- 
heeren.  God  gave  me  these  three  graves  in- 
stead of  the  grave  of  my  boy.  I  could  not 
tend  them  so  well  if  they  were  in  the  church- 
yard. It  is  too  far  from  my  house.  Nay, 
nay,  let  the  three  sleep  here." 

"But  you  have  not  the  room,  madame." 

"There  is  room  in  my  heart  and  in  my  gar- 
den, mynheer.  I  shall  keep  these  three 
graves,  and  maybe  in  Germany  there  is  some 
one  who  will  keep  the  grave  of  my  boy." 

"Messieurs,  there  is  no  use  arguing  with  a 
Belgian  peasant,"  said  the  Commissaire  of 
Metseys,  as  we  walked  back  through  the 
Street  of  the  Spy  to  our  waiting  automobile. 
"But  she  has  a  fine  spirit,  that  old  grand- 
mother." 


i7Sl 


XIV 

THE   WHITE    ISLAND 
A    STORY    OF   THE    GALLIPOLI    ADVENTURE 

THE  aviation  launch  rolled  slowly  in 
the  grip  of  the  grounds  well  behind 
one  of  the  desolate  islands  off  Tene- 
dos,  southwest  of  the  entrance  to  the  Dar- 
danelles. The  afternoon  was  windless  and 
humid.  Warm,  dripping  fog  covered  the 
launch  and  hid  from  her  the  outlines  of  the 
rocky,  treeless  island  in  the  lee  of  which  she 
lay.  Fog  had  sprinkled  the  deck  as  if  with 
baptismal  water,  and  the  day  was  noiseless 
except  for  the  lazy  slapping  of  waves  against 
the  launch's  side. 

A  hydro-aeroplane  alongside  dipped  and 
rose  rhythmically  with  the  launch's  motion, 
and  the  aviator,  Lieutenant  Douka,  of  the 
Royal  Flying  Corps,  muffled  in  a  British 
airman's  uniform,  with  thick  wadded  helmet 
[176] 


The  White  Island 

on  his  head,  goggles,  and  rubber  gauntlets, 
bent  over  and  tested  the  bomb-dropping 
mechanism.  Those  who  had  known  Douka 
as  a  student  in  America  or  as  an  unambitious 
idler  in  Paris  would  hardly  have  recognized 
him  in  his  new  role.  He  had  always  been 
romantic,  but  he  explained  this  amiable 
weakness  as  an  inheritance  from  his  Byzan- 
tine ancestors.  "My  grandparents  were 
Greek,  you  know,"  was  his  offhand  explana- 
tion to  college  friends  of  his  glowing  fond- 
ness for  the  classics  and  things  Hellenic. 
His  two  or  three  trips  to  Greece  had  been 
marred  by  the  unpleasant  contrast  between 
the  Greece  he  had  imagined  and  the  Greece  of 
to-day.  He  could  scarcely  make  himself 
understood  in  the  modern  tongue  of  Hellas; 
it  irritated  him,  as  modern  English  would 
doubtless  irritate  Chaucer.  "A  degenerate 
language  and  a  degenerate  people,"  he  told 
himself.  Yet  he  had  taken  up  aviation  at 
Pau,  not  as  a  sport — although  that  is  what 
he  told  his  friends — but  as  one  of  the  gifts 
he  could  offer  modern  Greece  when  the  day 
[177] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

of  her  final  fight  with  the  Turk  should 
dawn. 

The  war  came.  He  went  hopefully  to 
Athens.  There  came  a  day  when  King 
Constantine  overrode  his  people,  Venizelos 
retired,  constitutional  government  in  Greece 
ceased  to  be,  and  Douka  went  to  London 
and  volunteered  in  time  for  the  Dardanelles 
expedition. 

But  he  gave  no  sign  of  all  this  as  he  tested 
and  retested  the  bomb-dropping  mechanism 
hanging  between  the  pontoons  which  sup- 
ported the  machine,  and  pushed  and  pulled 
the  controls.  He  thrust  his  feet  against 
the  pedals  and  examined  the  petrol  and  oil 
throttles.  "Right,  lieutenant?"  called  the 
skipper  of  the  launch.  "Right,  sir,"  he 
answered.  "Belay  there!  Lively!"  the  skip- 
per shouted  to  two  sailors  who  held  the  ma- 
chine. A  mechanician  spun  the  propeller 
and  dropped  from  sight;  the  motor  churned 
nervously;  Lieutenant  Douka  lifted  his  hand 
and  signalled  that  all  was  satisfactory.  The 
launch  shot  sidewise,  and  the  'plane  skated 


The  White  Island 

swiftly  forward,  leaving  a  foaming  wake. 
She  tilted  and  shot  forward  faster,  then  up 
from  the  water  and  heavily  into  the  mist. 
Douka  swung  her  back  and  around  the 
launch.  Along  the  deck  beneath  him  the 
sailors  stood  at  attention,  but  a  gust  of  gray 
smoke  showed  him  that  his  escort  was  al- 
ready in  motion,  off  for  the  mother-ship 
and  the  flock  of  aeroplanes  at  Imbros,  and 
he  was  alone,  sailing  away  to  bomb  the 
Sultan  Omar,  the  flagship  of  the  Turkish  fleet. 
He  looked  at  the  clock — it  read  3:17;  then 
at  the  oil  gauge — it  was  working  properly. 
He  climbed  to  fifteen  hundred  feet.  Under 
him  the  mist  lay  like  an  Arctic  snow-field, 
broken  by  pools  of  rotten  ice  through  which 
the  gray  sea  stared.  The  sea  abruptly 
changed  to  gray  land,  and  he  mounted 
higher.  He  was  flying  at  a  height  of  four 
thousand  feet  over  Asia,  the  ancestral  enemy 
of  his  race  and  his  continent.  Somewhere 
down  in  the  haze  beneath  lay  Troy.  Douka 
smiled  bitterly  as  he  thought  again  of  the 
ten  years'  warfare,  and  of  how  the  Greeks 
I  i?9l 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

had  blotted  her  from  the  earth.  The  sullen 
roar  of  his  motor  seemed  to  stimulate  his 
imagination.  The  mist  thinned  slightly, 
and  he  saw  far  away  the  narrow  blue  ribbon 
of  the  Dardanelles — the  blood-thickened 
boundary  between  free  Europe  and  the  des- 
potic East.  Haughty  Xerxes  once  sat  on 
those  cliffs  and  watched  his  Asiatic  worms 
crossing  to  conquer  the  West.  Twenty-eight 
centuries  had  battled  on  that  blue  line.  Al- 
ways it  had  been  the  same,  age  after  age, 
century  after  century,  always  the  Greek 
against  the  Asiatic,  the  Greek  against  the 
barbarian,  and  for  five  hundred  years  the 
disinherited  Christian  Greek  against  the 
Moslem  Turk.  Muffled  in  his  helmet  as  he 
was,  he  began  to  sing  an  old  Byzantine  war 
song — a  song  his  grandmother  had  taught 
him.  His  hate  rose  like  a  bird  in  a  gale;  his 
clutched  hands  bit  into  the  rubber  sheathing 
of  the  levers;  he  drove  ahead  at  top  speed,  but 
his  wrath  seemed  to  leap  out  before  him  like 
a  racer  distancing  the  thing  behind.  To  kill, 
to  destroy,  to  blot  out,  utterly  obsessed  him. 
[180] 


The  White  Island 

High  over  the  Sea  of  Marmora  he  flew 
toward  Constantinople.  Battles  without  end 
had  been  fought  on  the  watery  plains  below. 
There  the  vast  Greek  Empire  had  struggled 
to  the  death  with  the  hordes  of  Asia.  The 
mist  which  had  half  hidden  the  land  thinned 
and  disappeared.  The  choppy  air  became 
cleaner  and  easier  to  fly  through.  He 
climbed  to  eight  thousand  feet.  Far  away 
he  caught  sight  of  the  Golden  Horn,  the 
royal  city  of  Constantine  the  Great,  like  a 
Grecian  jewel  set  in  Oriental  gold,  or  like  a 
Grecian  body  pierced  by  the  bright  spears  of 
Turkish  minarets.  For  five  centuries  she 
had  been  the  spoil  of  the  East.  He  cursed 
her  conquerors  and  laughed  to  himself. 
What  if  he  should  bomb  the  mosque  of  Omar 
or  the  Sultan's  palace?  .  .  .  He  shook 
his  fist  at  Scutari  as  if  the  city  were  a  person. 
Little  flowers  of  dirty-white  smoke  bloomed 
in  the  air  beside  him  and  above  him;  once  he 
seemed  to  fly  through  a  shower  where  before 
all  had  been  clear,  and  he  felt  small  pieces 
of  steel  drumming  like  rain  on  the  wings  of  his 
[181] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

'plane.  It  was  a  burst  of  shrapnel.  He 
laughed  and  flew  on. 

Up  the  Bosphorus  he  drove,  searching  the 
sea  with  his  eyes.  The  British  Secret  Service 
had  reported  the  Sultan  Omar  at  Bojukdere. 
He  strained  for  a  sight  of  her. 

Then  suddenly,  like  a  mirage,  he  saw  the 
half-moon  of  a  harbour  and  black  ships  at 
anchorage.  He  drew  rapidly  near.  A  vio- 
lent puff  of  smoke  rose  from  the  funnels  of 
the  largest  ship.  She  had  seen  him,  or  she 
had  been  warned,  and  was  endeavouring  to 
escape.  He  recognized  her  with  a  cry  of 
delight.  She  was  the  Sultan  Omar. 

Hidden  forts  on  the  green  hills  about  the 
harbour  burst  into  life.  Smoke,  flame,  and 
the  dull  thud  of  cannon  rose  to  him,  for  he 
was  flying  lower  and  lower.  A  shrapnel 
shell  flashed  just  in  front  of  him  and  showered 
steel  splinters  against  his  windshield.  He 
screamed  with  laughter.  It  seemed  to  him 
ridiculously  funny  that  they  should  think 
they  could  kill  him  or  escape  him. 

He  volplaned;  from  seven  thousand  feet 
[182! 


The  White  Island 

he  sank  to  one  thousand,  then  to  eight  hun- 
dred— to  seven  hundred — to  six  hundred 
— to  five  hundred.  A  curving  white  wake 
showed  him  that  his  victim  was  in  motion. 
He  was  almost  over  her.  Rifles  cracked 
as  the  crew  endeavoured  to  reach  him  with 
their  bullets.  He  did  not  hear  them.  His 
right  arm  swung  deliberately  back  to  the 
bomb-thrower.  He  was  near.  He  was  over. 
He  jerked  madly,  and  the  pent  volcano  fell 
straight  on  the  warship. 

The  air  rocked  and  heaved.  His  'plane 
almost  turned  a  somersault,  and  he  fought  to 
restore  its  balance  in  an  atmosphere  reeling 
like  a  typhoon.  Solid  waves  of  air  beat  and 
buffeted  him.  He  jerked  the  levers  and 
fought  furiously.  Then,  like  a  bronco,  the 
machine  found  her  feet,  prancing  and  shud- 
dering in  the  choppy  air,  and  up  he  climbed. 
A  glance  over  his  shoulder  was  enough,  even 
if  the  boiling  air  had  not  told  him  of  his  suc- 
cess. The  blue  sea  was  black  with  wreck- 
age; men  like  insects  floated  in  the  water, 
but  the  Sultan  Omar  had  disappeared. 

I  183! 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

The  air  still  cracked  and  roared  as  the 
Turks  shelled  him.  The  whole  land  seemed 
to  wake,  and  the  setting  sun  shone  through  a 
curtain  of  dirty  smoke.  A  Turkish  aeroplane 
slid  up  in  long  spirals  behind  him  to  cut  off 
his  retreat;  petrol  dripped  slowly  from  a  leak 
in  his  reservoir  caused  by  shrapnel  or  a  rifle 
bullet.  It  was  the  price  of  his  success;  a 
glance  told  him  that  he  could  not  stop  the 
leak.  He  had  often  thought  of  that  moment. 
Should  he  go  back  and  risk  capture  by  the 
Turks?  No;  he  would  fly  straight  out  into 
the  Black  Sea  and  die  alone  in  its  waters. 
He  would  fly  out  into  the  sea  where  his  an- 
cestors had  sailed  centuries  before  the  Mos- 
lems had  taken  Constantinople;  the  sea  of 
the  Golden  Fleece,  of  Medea,  of  Xenophon 
and  the  Ten  Thousand,  of  the  long  cam- 
paigns against  the  Persians.  He  would  die 
there. 

The  sun  set  swiftly.     In  the  twilight  his 

mind  seemed  to  slip  its  leash  and  play  high 

jinks  with  him.     His  palms  grew  into  the 

handles  of  the  controls  and  became  part  of 

I  184] 


The  White  Island 

the  mechanism;  his  fingers  lengthened  into 
levers,  his  legs  into  rods  upholding  the  aero- 
plane, and  he  flew,  screaming,  laughing,  and 
cursing,  until  night  fell  like  a  plummet  from 
the  dusky  sky. 

Suddenly  his  machine  struck  the  level 
surface  of  the  sea  and  buckled  forward. 
Douka  awoke,  as  if  from  sleep,  tore  the  har- 
ness from  his  aching  head,  and  slumped  for- 
ward against  the  straps,  waiting  for  the  end. 
The  wreckage  of  his  machine  still  floated 
on  the  long,  slow  waves,  and  rocked  easily 
to  and  fro,  but  one  of  the  pontoons  was 
crushed  and  another  was  leaking. 

He  felt  no  wind  against  his  face,  and  the 
sea  was  calm.  "Lucky,"  he  thought  list- 
lessly, knowing  that  at  a  touch  of  wind  or 
wave  the  'plane  would  go  under.  It  might 
float  for  hours,  or  only  for  minutes;  he  did 
not  care.  Death  was  certain. 

But  there  seemed  to  be  a  sound  of  voices 
in  the  air,  a  distant  singing  and  a  splash  of 
oars.  "Delirium,"  he  said  calmly.  "But 
[185] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

how    beautifully    they    sing!     What    is    it? 
It  is  Greek!     Why,  it  is  the  old  Greek:  'To 
thee,  Zeus,  blessings  upon  our  timid  flocks." 
His  wondering  lips  formed  the  words  which  he 
had  learned  in  school. 

Then  out  of  the  darkness  swam  a  boat, 
and  in  the  boat  were  a  steersman  and  four 
men  at  the  oars,  and  the  men  were  singing  a 
hymn  to  Zeus,  the  Father  of  all  and  the  King 
of  all.  To  Lieutenant  Douka  nothing  now 
seemed  strange.  To  his  shaken  mind  it 
seemed  good  to  hear  them,  good  to  see  them, 
good  to  find  them  loosing  the  straps  which 
held  him  to  the  wrecked  machine,  and  lifting 
him,  in  silence,  into  their  boat. 

Half  an  hour  they  rowed,  when  Douka 
caught  across  the  level  sea  a  hot  breath  of 
wind  and  the  odour  breathed  from  rye- 
fields  in  midsummer.  "Land!  It  is  land!" 
he  exclaimed.  "It  is  land — the  White  Is- 
land," they  answered  gently.  Both  he  and 
they  had  spoken  in  the  classic  Greek,  the 
Greek  of  the  old  heroic  days — not  the  bastard 
modern  speech,  larded  with  cruel  words  from 
[186] 


The  White  Island 

the  Turks  and  the  rough  idioms  of  northern 
barbarians.  His  tired  eyes  strained  forward. 
Like  night  mist  advancing  upon  them  came 
the  land,  white  like  foam  and  very  fair;  and 
he  heard  cicadas  chanting  in  the  olive  trees, 
and  the  warm  breath  of  the  night  brought 
murmurs  of  song  and  the  sibilant  lapping  of 
waves  along  a  sandy  shore. 

All  the  island  was  white.  A  crescent 
moon  stole  out  of  cloudbanks  and  stared 
down  on  white  sands,  white  balustrades,  the 
white  walls  of  palaces,  white  hills  swelling 
against  the  darkness,  silvery  white  olive 
groves,  and  slowly  moving  figures,  clad  all  in 
white,  pacing  along  the  stairs. 

A  white  crane  beside  the  landing-place 
awoke,  flapped  his  wings,  and  flew  slowly 
off.  Stately  men  and  beautiful  women 
thronged  the  quay  and  looked  down  curi- 
ously as  the  boat  grated  against  the  beach. 
"We  have  brought  another  from  the  wars," 
the  steersman  called  to  them.  "Welcome, 
friend,'*  those  on  the  quay  called  gently;  and 
"Thanks,  friends,"  Douka  answered. 
[187] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

His  tortured  muscles  knotted  and  failed 
as  he  tried  to  climb  from  the  boat,  and  he  fell 
back  helplessly.  Two  of  the  oarsmen  bent 
to  him,  lifted  him  like  a  child,  and  bore  him 
between  them  up  the  long  flights  of  steps. 
He  had  fainted. 

When  he  awoke,  his  nude  body  lay  on  a 
warm  marble  slab,  and  two  male  attendants 
of  the  bath  were  kneading  his  aching  flesh 
with  perfumed  hands.  Their  touch  was  like 
ice  and  like  fire,  and  life  seemed  poured  back 
into  his  body  as  into  a  wineskin  as  they 
worked.  The  hands  stole  over  him,  gradu- 
ally more  and  more  softly,  exploring,  sooth- 
ing, stupefying.  He  slept.  .  .  .  He 
awoke  once  more,  to  find  that  they  had 
placed  him  in  what  seemed  to  be  a  bed  of  live 
coals,  in  a  white  furnace  which  burned  and 
leaped  with  light,  but  the  crackling  heat  did 
not  harm  him,  and  again  he  slept.  .  .  . 
He  awoke  in  a  high-roofed  hall,  and  all  around 
him  was  light  and  laughter,  jets  of  fountains 
and  music  of  slow  streams;  and  the  two  at- 
tendants plunged  him  again  and  again  into 
[•188] 


The  White  Island 

pools  which  received  him  as  into  a  bed  and 
covered  him  with  warm  floods. 

Then  he  was  rubbed  with  oils,  and  a  gar- 
land was  placed  on  his  head.  Two  girls 
came,  bringing  him  clothing — a  blue-bordered 
peplos,  a  white  mantle  for  his  shoulders,  and 
white  sandals  for  his  feet.  "Drink,"  they 
said,  and  they  gave  him  a  cup  of  barley 
crushed  in  water  flavoured  with  mint. 

"Now  it  is  time  for  the  feast,"  they  cried 
gayly.  "Come  to  the  feast."  And  they 
led  him  through  alleys  bordered  with  white 
violets,  hyacinths,  roses,  crocuses,  and  ghostly 
narcissi.  In  the  cleft  hills  the  olive  groves 
gleamed  like  pools  of  moonlight;  a  waking 
dove  gurgled  drowsily,  and  the  cicadas  sang; 
and  to  left  and  right  he  heard  faint  snatches 
of  old  Greek  hymns  and  saw  white  figures 
moving  slowly  along  the  sandy  paths. 

So  they  brought  him  to  the  banquet  in  a 
high-roofed  hall  of  marble,  lit  by  flambeaux 
in  sconces  along  the  walls,  garlanded  with 
white  lilies,  and  spread  with  Oriental  tables 
and  low  couches.  And  boys  and  girls  flew 
[189] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

laughingly  about  serving  the  meats  and 
drink. 

He  was  led  to  his  place,  and  reclined  in 
the  antique  fashion  on  a  cushion  beneath 
his  elbow.  Then  guests  began  to  appear 
through  the  wide  marble  doors.  To  his  de- 
light and  astonishment  he  knew  them.  They 
were  like  old  friends — friends  of  his  youth, 
friends  of  the  youth  of  all  the  world;  and  they 
came  into  the  hall  with  garlands  in  their  hair 
and  bright  robes  upon  them  and  gayety  and 
peace  in  their  looks. 

There  came  Achilles,  his  gigantic  arm  over 
the  shoulders  of  Hector,  and  a  smile  on  his 
youthful  face  as  he  talked;  and  goat-bearded, 
bandy-legged  Thersites,  limping  and  chatter- 
ing endlessly;  and  stately  Nestor;  broad- 
breasted,  stout  Agamemnon;  Priam,  leaning 
on  an  ivory  staff;  wily  Odysseus,  walking 
alone  in  the  throng;  huge,  ungainly  Ajax; 
gossipy  Menelaus,  Sarpedon,  and  Patroclus; 
Neoptolemus  leading  by  the  hand  the  sweet 
boy  Astyanax;  Diomedes,  ^Eneas,  smooth- 
shaven  Troilus,  black  Memnon,  laughing 

[  190] 


The  White  Island 

Paris.  And  the  women !  white-armed  Briseis, 
motherly  Hecuba,  Andromache  and  gentle 
Cressida,  Chrysei's,  grave  Cassandra,  Pene- 
lope, Polyxena,  Iphigenia,  the  lithe,  dark- 
eyed  beauty  of  Myrine  the  Amazon,  and  the 
golden  radiance  of  Helen,  her  face  like  noon 
sunlight — Helen  of  Sparta,  for  whose  sake 
the  Greeks  are  forever  named  Hellenes,  at 
whose  shrine  all  men  worship,  and  shall  wor- 
ship so  long  as  beauty  endures — these  came 
into  the  high-roofed  hall;  these,  and  many 
more. 

And  after  them  came  an  old  blind  singer,  a 
lyre  in  his  hands,  a  laurel  crown  on  his 
head.  "Homer,  Homer!"  they  cried.  "A 
welcome  to  Homer!"  All  rose  as  he  passed, 
and  they  led  him  to  the  highest  place  in  the 
hall,  and  took  their  pillows  again,  applauding 
him. 

They  poured  libations  and  began  the  ban- 
quet, drinking  from  four-handled  cups  stud- 
ded with  gold.  They  ate  no  flesh.  There 
was  no  mark  of  death  in  the  hall,  or  violence, 
or  cruelty.  They  talked  gayly,  and  all  their 
[191] 


Tales  From  a  Famished  Land 

talk  was  of  peace;  they  told  old  stories,  but 
all  their  stories  were  of  peace;  and  when  they 
sang,  their  songs  were  of  peace.  And  always 
the  boys  and  girls  served  them,  laughing. 

Douka  drank  from  his  cup,  and  it  was  rilled 
again  and  again.  Pain  and  hatred  fell 
from  him  like  a  garment;  he  laughed  and 
jested  with  the  rest — with  Paris  of  Troy, 
Paris  of  Asia,  Paris  of  the  East,  smiling  on 
his  right,  and  bearded  Odysseus  on  his  left. 
"Tell  us  a  tale,  Odysseus,'*  he  begged  at 
last,  "  a  taleof  your  travels  and  your  prowess.'* 
And  Odysseus,  shaking  great  tones  from  his 
chest  like  snowflakes  in  winter,  told  of 
Nausicaa,  daughter  of  King  Alcinoiis,  and 
the  game  of  ball  on  the  Phocaean  shore. 

"Prowess?"  he  ended.  "There  is  no 
prowess  but  kindliness.  Only  kindliness  lives 
forever  in  the  memory." 

Then  Helen,  smiling  at  them,  cried:  "Sing, 
Homer,  sing,  for  the  moon  has  set,  and  the 
Pleiades;  it  is  midnight,  and  the  time  is  going 
by.  Sing  of  hearth  and  shrine,  sing  of  youth 
and  age,  sing  of  love,  sing  of  peace,  sing  of 
[  192] 


The  White  Island 

the  flocks  safe  from  harm,  the  plowed  earth 
and  the  groves,  and  the  untroubled  sea. 
Sing  of  the  child  nestling  close  to  his  mother, 
and  of  joy,  joy,  joy!  Sing  to  us  of  these, 
old  Homer." 

And  Homer  sang. 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  Turkish 
torpedo-boat  patrolling  in  the  Black  Sea 
came  upon  the  aviator  who  had  destroyed 
the  Sultan  Omar.  He  lay  in  the  wreckage 
of  his  hydro-aeroplane.  The  Turks  took  him 
unresistingly  into  their  craft.  They  say  that 
he  sang  softly  to  himself  in  an  obscure  Grec- 
ian dialect  and  babbled  incessantly  of  Helen 
and  the  heroes  who  fell  before  Troy. 


THE    END 


[  193 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


NOV  1  9 

JflARY 


A    000110999    0 


University 
Souther 
Librar 


